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November 23, 2005
When You Need to Get the Hell Out of LA...
OK OK, I know that one of the biggest reasons we are media people at USC is because we're in Los Angeles. It's ok to admit that one day we all plan to be rich, powerful, famous or whatever your plans are in your respective field, that's why there's a Trojan network in the first place.
But personally, this semester's been rough. Between 2 massive papers, tons of group presentations, working for the man (USC actually) and trying futily to chisel a social life into the crevasses of my schedule, I'm just about to spontaneously explode and take out my immediate surroundings as well.
Some people will have the good fortune of being able to return to their respective homes, miles from the outward-spanning local landscape, but some of us (including me) will be trapped like rats in this maze of madness with no immediate plans. Sure, you can travel to the standard Vegas, San Francisco, San Diego or Rosarito (if you can leave the country legally) locations, but most of the time all you really want is a relaxing day trip away from the LA central core. I figured that I'd try and be generous (as well as refresh my own memory by asking my brothers) what would be good for a 1-2 day trip if you need to flee from your ordinary vacation day of sleeping until 1pm and watching cartoons all day (although, that's sounding pretty good right about now)
Orange County. And please, don't watch "The OC" and expect to get a glimpse of the lives people really live in Orange County.
Instead, visit Huntington Beach (or Surf City, as determined by the Beach Boys) or the nearby Seal Beach. Both are havens for quieter beach communities with lots of X-mas cheer, but sometimes it's just nice to hang out by the ocean and hear the sounds of the waves.
Laguna Beach (you know, that emo MTV show's location), is pretty damn gorgeous any time of year actually. One of the few beach communities in all of Orange County where there's plenty of outdoor walking space with interesting beach-art galleries all over the place and small bistros lining the local streets (which all have an amazing view of the ocean).
Dana Point or Chino Hills both have amazing and completely different state parks. Dana Point's is a huge rocky and beautiful beach where you can always spend some time BBQing or just being introspective. Chino Hills is more for the active type, as this national park is jam-packed full of endangered plants with (of course) your RDA of forest creatures for those interested in hiking.
Or if going south makes you feel like you're falling down, you can always head up to
Ventura County.
If you ever feel the strong need to hike, Los Padres National Forest is just huge and amazingly scenic. There's not a lot of snow, but there are a ton of trails, and for those of us who like to feel like cement is no substitute for dirt, you'll get your fill here. Also, if you enjoy golfing, there are ton of courses throughout the entire county in over 19,000 acres of unincorporated land. It's seriously a great way to relax, or to get frustrated and ruin your rented clubs. Either way, it's better than doing nothing all day.
but if you still believe that the world's flat and are too afraid to head west,
San Bernardino's Mountains are made for you.
I'm going to completely skip the things you can do in towns of San Bernardino, because the greatness of this place comes from the outdoors activities. This is especially important if you miss snow, because summer's might hit 130 degrees out there, but winters fall well below 30 degrees Fahrenheit. For those of us who are too burnt out to take hints, this means pl
aces like Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead are made for skiing, snowboard, tubing, ice-skating and all those other wintry things you see on the front of Hallmark cards this time of the year.
If you're looking for something REALLY different, hit up the abandoned town of Calico. Yes Virginia, this is a ghost town from the ye olde days of the California Gold Rush, 1949 and all that madness. Whether or not there's gold in the hills, there are definitely no people and that makes this place just that much more interesting, see for yourself.
But if you're like me and plan to head north, here are a couple of suggestions for road trips:
Yosemite National Park - Half Dome, trails, mountain climbing and biking, plenty of space to stretch.
Mammoth Mountain - Snow. Need I say more? Ok, there are also 7 huge lakes, cheap rates, and amazing ski tours through the mountains. Even if you're like me and suck at skiing.
Death Valley
The lowest point on land in the world, Death Valley really lives up to it's name (not the "death" part, but the "valley" part, no need to get scared). This time of year would be a better to drive through because you're definitely not going to get your car through there in the summer. Trust me, I've tried.
And if you head up the 14 freeway, be sure to stop somewhere halfway to Mammoth at this beef jerky place. Trust me, it's the only place in the middle of nowhere, but you'll never have better jerky in your life. I've traveled a lot and I swear, I need to go back about once a year just for the jerky.
Anyway, happy upcoming holidays and take the rest of this year in stride, you'll do just fine.
- Tony Chavira
On Location
Channel 18 is showing a Korean TV drama called "Love in Harvard" at noon every week day. However, it was actually shot on USC campus. :D (See pic, not sure which place is in the background)
I know USC has been shooting location for many movies and TV dramas. Thought it would be fun if any of you share some knowledge about that...
Susan
Let your voice be heard!
Read this message from our friends at room207*online
Sign this petition @ room207*online
"There has been some discussion about early afternoon classes and how most of us would have a hard time making it to Annenberg for a 3:45 class once a week for a whole semester.
Things could get a whole lot harder if the trend of offering required, core courses in the daytime continues without much comment from those of us who are working and interning. The required course for Global Comm is scheduled in the daytime next semester, as is Cody’s 510 course. What if that was the exact course you needed to graduate, as it is in the Globals case?
We would like to make it known to the administration that we would like at least one required course be taught in the evening every semester so that working students are able to finish their degrees on schedule.
We have an opportunity to present this directly to the Dean in one week, so we need your virtual "John Hancock" fast! Please “sign” your name (please use a real name) and the program you are in by making a comment to this post and we will present our “petition” to the Dean when he comes to our Comm 599 class on Nov. 28th.
This isn’t confrontational in any way…we just want the administration to know that this is an issue many of us care about, and that working students who can’t be on campus all day need to have options to get through the program and keep our jobs.
November 18, 2005
What's Up @ The Norman Lear Center
Johanna Holan (the other Johanna) asked me to describe some of the projects we've got going at the Norman Lear Center. If you're interested in interning with us, just let us know! Email us at enter@usc.edu.
Grand Intervention: the Lear Center and the Los Angeles Times have joined forces to help Los Angeles develop the best park imaginable on Grand Avenue
Creativity, Commerce & Culture: our latest project involves developing a fun multiplayer game that will help people better understand the effects of telecom policies
Celebrity, Politics & Public Life: this project explores what happens when entertainment and politics collide
Hollywood, Health & Society: we help television writers and producers find the most accurate information about health issues for their storylines
MTV Cribs @ Annenblog - Part 2 - YOUR Feedback Worked
Due to the many responses on Annenblog's first post about MTV Cribs @ Annenberg's Lobby, the lobby has been cleared out in order to begin making the suggested changes. Get your comments in before Thanksgiving in case they make the changes then!
Keep the feedback coming!
November 17, 2005
Holiday plans in the works?
LA during the holiday's doesn't really bring the song "Silver Bells" to mind, but I'm curious as to what variety of Holiday festivities are going on around town and where y'all may be headed.
Myself, I'm heading up to the northwest for the actual holidays (Portland, OR and Spokane, WA to be precise), but for when I'm in town, I recommend the following activities:
- Turkey Trot 5 & 10K running race in Dana Point - work for the turkey!
- Nutcracker Ballet at the OC performing arts
- Winter Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach
- The Grove in BH for Holiday movies/shopping
- Surfing - just for the novelty of going in December
and I will secretly admit - Disneyland is actually fun on New Years (as long as one of your stops is the House of Blues bar in Downtown Disney for "refreshments").
What do you recommend?
November 16, 2005
Bowling for Turkey
Take a break and bowl a strike!
You know the feeling -- the semester's almost over, but there's a huge mountain of homework staring you in the face. What's the best way to get that mountain out of your face and remember what it was like to see the light of day? That's right -- bowling.
ASCMA and the Cinema-TV School are throwing a joint bowling night at Lucky Strike Lanes. Come on out and remind yourself of what it's like to talk to someone aside from folks in your project groups!
***FREE BOWLING AND FREE SHOES TO THE FIRST 45 PEOPLE TO SHOW UP***
What: ASCMA Bowling night
When: Sunday, Nov. 20th
Bowling 6-8pm, fun times afterwards
Where: Lucky Strike Lanes
Hollywood and Highland
Why: It's a study break, a networking evening, and a chance to meet new folks all rolled into one!
Questions: boekelhe@usc.edu
Photos from Vietnam, Thailand & Taiwan!
Forgive this shameless self-promotion, but...I thought it would be fun to post some photos from my recent business trip to Asia (I was there from the end of Oct through the beginning of November; about 2 weeks. It wasn't easy missing class for that long but....thank goodness for understanding professors and classmates!)
This is in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (aka Saigon.) The chaos that is the city traffic there is really amazing. Somehow it all works, though. Here is a shot of a small sea of motorbikes, which seem to be everywhere in "HCMC", zig-zagging to and fro. A lot of friends asked me if I was worried about contracting bird flu while over there, and I told them that I was far more concerned about just surviving my ground transportation! All in all, kind of exciting, though.
Note the facemasks that some of the motorbikers are wearing. This is because riding in that pollution will probably take YEARS off your life if you don't cover up like that....
Vietnam is really changing quite fast. When it comes to economic development in Asia, everyone's attention seems to be on China. But Vietnam feels like a "little China" to me....
This is the plane I took from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi. Vietnam Airlines is the carrier. They have purchased a number of Boeings and Airbuses recently. The ride was smooth.....felt as good as being on United...
So I lamely enough forgot to pack a belt for my trip, and had a few minutes before the start of an exhibition I was participating in in Hanoi to try to find a shop that sells one. In the course of my search I stumbled across this place - an internet cafe catering to games players. (and more motorbikes; they seem to be everywhere!)
This was the scene in the very same area as the internet/games cafe. Online vs. offline life. The modern vs. the traditional. Just thought it was an interesting juxtaposition.
This was taken at the international education exhibition I attended. The girl to my left in the photo is Thuy, who assisted me at the event, and the girl in the traditional Vietnamese clothing is Thuy's friend. Beautiful outfit, yeah? (Note that I wasn't successful in my search for the belt. argg!)
After Vietnam I moved on to Bangkok, Thailand. This is me in front of my hotel there. It turns out that the Prime Minister of Cambodia was staying at the same hotel! I left him some promotional materials from the university I work for ("CSUN") as a goodwill gesture (really!)
These fellas were advertising for DHL at an exhibition I attended in Bangkok. I don't know where "D" was.
This is the office of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. It happened to be near one of my appointments (too bad I didn't get to meet with the PM himself; ha!)
This is the inside of a "World of Warcraft" internet cafe in Taipei (Taiwan), one of my favorite cities in all of Asia. It was just about standing room only in that place. I had just gone in to check my work e-mails. You can imagine that I looked a little out of place doing that there...!
Okay, I'm feeling way too self-indulgent at this point, so I'll stop here (I have a lot of other photos, but...) Do hope you got a kick out of these!
Eddie
November 15, 2005
Aw yeah - Participate on AnnenBlog and WIN MOVIE TICKETS!
From now till November 28, the Top Three Contributors to AnnenBlog will score a pair of AMC movie tickets ~ just in time for all those great holiday movies! Comment on an existing post or shoot an author request to Annenblog@yahoo.com so you can post your own topics. Each comment is worth one point and each post equals 5 points, so rack it up & happy posting!
**Who is eligible? - any Annenberg Comm Management or Global Comm grad student!**
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