night out on the town

Tom called me at work today to let me know that he had acquired some free tickets to see the LA Philharmonic at the Disney Concert Hall from someone at the firm. After work Tom picked me up and then we hurried downtown where we had some pretty decent Italian food (we ate at this really weird restaurant that was full of old people and looked like a retirement home, but the food was pretty good) and then went to the concert hall where we saw Shadow of Stalin - Music Behind the Iron Curtain which was really fantastic. Here are a few pictures from the evening . . . sorry, they were taken with our camera phones.

Memorial Day Weekend

Well, Tom and I are exhausted. My mom and stepdad were here visiting from Utah and they wore us out :) We dropped them off at the airport a couple hours ago and I'm missing them already. But we did have some fun. And we ate some great food. We enjoyed some time at the Beverly Center, Santa Monica 3rd street promenade, and wonderful Westwood. We also ate a few of our favorite places, and one new place called La Serenata which had some wonderful Mexican seafood. We did a lot of walking and I think my mom has now been assured that we live in a pretty nice, safe area. Here are a couple pictures from this weekend (the rest can be seen on flickr once I upload them):
Everything else is going well. My leg is healing pretty well and Tom is almost recovered from his illness. By the way, here's a picture of Tom in front of his office building. The hotel my parents stayed in is across the street from his building so we took a little photo of him.
And better late than never . . . HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELLY. Saturday was my youngest sister's 12th birthday. Here's a picture of her (looking very unexcited) that I took when we were in Utah for Christmas.

ewww

Today I am sitting at home with my leg elevated instead of going to work. I had (what the doctor thinks was) a congenital nevus removed from the back of my left calf yesterday. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought and I hadn't planned on staying home today, but now it is pretty ugly and every time I walk it oozes with a bloody liquid. Yuck. You may want to look away at this point, because here is a picture:
In other news, Tom is still sick though he appears to be recovering. He went to the student health center on Monday thinking that he had strep and that he would feel better once he got some antibiotics, but his strep test was negative so now he's waiting out what is probably a virus. The doctor said it could be mono or some other virus, so we're just hoping for some other virus. I had mono a couple years ago and I did not enjoy the experience. Despite the fact that he's not feeling well, Tom has been going to work every day and I am really proud of him.

Actually, he just called me to tell me that he went to lunch at The Polo Lounge at The Beverly Hills Hotel and he saw Jake Gyllenhall and Maria Shriver. Every day so far he has been going to lunch with one or two attorneys from the firm so he has gotten to eat all kinds of interesting things. He even has his own office :) I'll try to convince him to make a post about his experiences at the firm.

our amazing vacation

Tom and I returned from San Diego this evening. Our plans were somewhat altered since Tom has been sick since Monday and he began to feel progressively worse throughout the week. We stayed at the cheapest hotel we could find; I was a little skeptical, but the place ended up to be pretty nice. Plus they had a decent continental breakfast. I am going to post a few pictures, but the rest of the pictures can be seen here. I'm going to upload a few pictures tonight, but the rest of them will probably get uploaded tomorrow or later this week.

Day One

On Wednesday we drove down to the Wild Animal Park. The weather was amazing (mid-60s and overcast) and the zoo was relatively empty (other than several dozen mothers pushing strollers). Tom was a trooper (considering that he was sick) and we spent several hours wandering around. Later that afternoon we went to La Jolla and walked around near the beach and enjoyed a delicious dinner.

Day Two

We ate breakfast on Thursday morning at a wonderful place in downtown San Diego. I had pumpkin waffles and Tom had eggs benedict which were both amazing. We spent our second day at the San Diego Zoo. This was a very different atmosphere than the Wild Animal Park, mainly because there were several different elementary schools visiting the zoo. It was LOUD. But we still enjoyed ourselves. The zoo had more of a jungle-feel compared to the safari-feel at the Wild Animal Park. After the zoo we went to Old Town and had some delicious Mexican Food. We then went to San Ysidro (this is on the US/Mexico border) to shop at a very large outlet shopping center. We got Tom some nice slacks for his new job and I got a couple shirts for work.

Day Three

On Friday we spent some time resting (since Tom wasn't feeling very well) and then headed over to Ocean Beach. This is actually where we went/wandered around/ate lunch when we visited San Diego in Dec 2005 so it was fun to visit again. This time we enjoyed some spectacular fish tacos. Afterwards we went to Mission Beach where we walked along the shore, watched some surfers, and split a delicious ice cream cone. We had my favorite meal on Friday night. We had done some restaurant research before we left, and one of the places that kept popping up was across the street from our hotel. It was a great Korean BBQ place, much like the restaurant that Tom worked at in high school. Delicious.

Day Four

Tom really wasn't feeling very good when he woke up this morning (his lymph nodes were visibly swollen) and I wasn't feeling that great either so we nixed our plans to go to Tijuana and decided to go to a movie theater near the San Diego temple (we had intended to visit the temple earlier in the week but had decided not to since Tom wasn't feeling well). We have only seen three movies since we moved to LA and since we both love movies, we took advantage of the opportunity to catch a couple of matinées. We saw Shrek 3 and Spiderman 3 and then enjoyed some Chipotle before heading back to LA. I was more impressed with the Chipotle (yum) than with either movie, but Shrek 3 was definitely the better of the two.

Now we are home and getting some much needed rest. Tom starts his job at Irell and Manella on Monday so we are hoping that he will recover before then. I will head back to work on Monday, but I am not too disappointed to be heading back since my mom and step-dad are visiting next weekend and I am really looking forward to seeing them :)

We're on Vacation

Tom and I are currently in San Diego on vacation. I will post a more extensive blog later, but here are a couple pictures for now. We will be back on Saturday night :)

Happy Mother's Day

Tom and I have had a fun weekend (despite the fact that he still has one more final). We spent a very enjoyable day in Bakersfield yesterday where we were able to spend some time with Tom's parents. We've been feeling a little claustrophobic in our apartment so it was nice to get away. We used some of our tax return this year to buy a new digital camera so Tom enjoyed taking a few photos of his mother's beautiful garden.
They have a few little kittens that have made their home in their backyard.
And are a couple of Tom's parents in front of the garden.
We ended the day by going to the movies for the first time in a VERY long time. We must be getting really old because afterward we both commented that we thought the movie was WAY too loud. We saw Hot Fuzz which we had wanted to see for quite a while. It was hilarious, but definitely not for the easily offended. I had been really looking forward to this movie because the movie Shaun of the Dead (which was made by the same people) is one of my favorite movies. Hot Fuzz was AT LEAST as good as Shaun of the Dead. Hilarious.

Happy Mother's Day to our mothers, grandmothers, and everyone else. Here's a picture of me with my mother and my mother's mother who are both amazing, incredible people and I miss them very much.

googling myself

I was . . . a little bored at work today and I decided to google myself. I really didn't think I'd find myself, but after I did a little browsing around I was a little disappointed that I only found myself three times. I started with my married name and then realized that since I have only been married for a year, I should also check under my maiden name. This is what I found:

the "Erica Jackman" search
http://kenison.net/calendar/index.php?p=calsubmit&curDay=1&curMonth=3&curYear=2007
Ok, I don't think that this really counts, but it did show up in google. Tom's uncle maintains a website which has a family calendar and our anniversary is on it.

the "Erica Taylor" search
http://kennedy.byu.edu/student/InterculturalOutreach/edintern_team.php
You have to click on the "Fall 2005" link to see me. This is the semester Tom and I met :)
http://mormonlit.lib.byu.edu/lit_author.php?a_id=6838&orderby=sort_genre&PHPSESSID
I was really surprised to see this link show up. Especially since the poem isn't actually there when you click on the link. . .

The "Erica Taylor" search was pretty difficult because there are lots of them out there. There is a basketball player, a musician, someone missing after hurricane Katrina. It took me awhile to sift through all of those pages. I actually went to high school with another "Erica Taylor." It was very confusing and the school got our stuff mixed up all of the time. Especially since her name was "Erica Jane Taylor" and mine was "Erica Jean Taylor" and we share the same birthday (except she's a year younger). Also, she was a triplet and one of the triplets was named Kara and I also have a sister named Kara. Weird. I was actually surprised at how many "Erica Jackman"s there were. I guess I'm not the only one :)

30 Rock is Amazing

It is Thursday evening and I am sitting here (watching The Office) wishing that 30 Rock hadn't wrapped up season one last week. 30 Rock is our favorite show. It seems like every favorite show I have ever had has been canceled prematurely. 30 Rock hasn't been canceled, in fact I think that they have guaranteed a second season, but I have heard this before. The ratings are pretty low and I keep hearing rumors that it is going to be canceled. It even took a brief hiatus in the middle of the season.

My first favorite show was My S0-Called Life. In middle school I was obsessed with My So-Called Life. I was in love with Jordan Catalano and I wanted to be Angela Chase. For some reason, I'm still not exactly sure why, my mom did not want me to watch this show. I think it was because it was on MTV, so I would watch it whenever she was gone and since MTV plays every episode of every show over and over again so I eventually saw them all (I now have them on DVD). Then it was Freaks and Geeks. This show was phenomenal. I was/am definitely a of a geek. And I was/am a bit of a freak. This show was great because the main character (Lindsay, who is now on ER) went from being a freak to hanging out with the cool people. It was an inspiration. . . . until it got canceled. What was next. . . oh yes, the best show of them all, Arrested Development. The ending of this show was absolutely tragic. The great (and the terrible) thing about this show was that each episode built on the previous episode so the show got progressively more and more funny. So if you missed an episode or you tried to start watching halfway through the season, you missed all of the inside jokes. At this point I think I've seen all three seasons three times (I know, it's pretty pathetic, but each time it got funnier and funnier).

The really tragic thing is that some of the best episodes were at the end when the show made fun of itself for getting canceled. Oh, I miss it. And now we have 30 Rock. It's a little like Arrested Development, a little SNL, and it has got to be the funniest show on television right now.

Anyway, there's not much going on with us right now. Tom took his first final yesterday. He thinks that it went pretty well but since the class is on a curve, we won't know for a few weeks. . . .

Festival of Books

Tom took a break from finals-studying this weekend so that we could wander around the LA Times Festival of Books on campus. Last year right before we went on our honeymoon we spent some time on UCLA campus before our plane left and it was when they were cleaning up from the Festival of Books so this event was a little sentimental to us. It was VERY hot on Saturday, but it was fun to walk around and look at all of the booths and all of the crazy people. Anyway, finals will be over in a couple weeks, but until then life will probably be pretty boring. Here are a few pictures from this weekend:

This evening Tom and I were wandering around Westwood and we noticed a group of policemen arresting a homeless man for drugs in front of a Starbucks. There were several people standing around watching the old man be handcuffed. It was an incredibly sad thing to watch. After living in Westwood for several months, I have become pretty familiar with the homeless people who live in the neighborhood. There are A LOT of them. Some of them come and go, but most of them are always around and always talking to themselves. There is one guy who usually sits on a bench on Broxton and he wears about fifteen sweaters at once. Even in the summer. There is another guy who sits on a crate on a corner that I pass on my way to work everyday. He sounds like he is preaching, but his speech is so slurred that I can't understand what he's saying. Before living here, I had very little interaction with the homeless. In Pittsburg I knew plenty of really poor people, but I don't think any of them were homeless. In Salt Lake I lived in the suburbs and even though I tried to go downtown pretty frequently, Salt Lake is so nice and clean that the homeless people didn't really seem that homeless. Now, I see homeless people everywhere. And it is just unbelievably sad.

I don't really know how to segue out of that subject so I'm not really going to try. Tom called me yesterday with some exciting news: he had fit into his pre-mission shorts. This has been a goal of his over the last few months, and they finally fit :) He still wants to lose about five pounds, but I think he looks absolutely fantastic the way that he is. I couldn't be more proud of him. Speaking of Tom, he finished class a couple days ago and now he is just getting ready for finals. His last final is on May 14th and then we are going to go on a nice little vacation to San Diego. I think we both really need one.







I continue to be glad that we don't drive our car very often.
I keep seeing this articles on msnbc.com about how gas prices are supposed to be going down, yet they continue to rise. Speaking of msnbc.com, I hate the new layout of the website. Tom and I both read their articles frequently, but the new font they are using for their headlines is driving me crazy. We actually both read several articles from the website and then enjoy discussing them when we get home. I think the new msnbc.com font is ruining my life. I am so glad tomorrow is Friday.

heroes returns

We have a pretty fun few days since I posted last. Last Thursday the Hillmans (my mom's sister Julie and her family) were here visiting from Utah, so we got the opportunity to spend some time with them. Then over the weekend we did a whole lot of nothing (for the first time in a while) which was especially enjoyable.

The Hillmans were in town to spend some time at Disneyland and Universal Studios, and we were lucky enough that they took some of their vacation time to visit with us. I wasn't sure where we should take them, but considering that I know my cousins love to shop we took them to the Beverly Center. I told them ahead of time that celebrities occasionally shop at this mall, but I warned them that we probably wouldn't see any. Little did I know that we would be shopping in the middle of H&M when my aunt Julie would spot Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens from the movie High School Musical. I have never seen this movie and I would have never recognized these two, but my cousins are apparently in love with Zac so they got to have their pictures taken with them and they were really excited.
Here's a picture of Kate and Olivia trying on sunglasses at H&M















I had a very interesting experience at work today. Around 10am we started hearing people yelling through megaphones very loudly and unintelligibly over and over. We could see the protesters walking up and down the street, but we couldn't figure out what they were protesting. When I left for lunch, I figured it out. When I walked downstairs the lobby of the building was filled with police officers and there was a line of police officers in front of the building. It seemed excessive considering that there were only five or six protesters and they were protesting something having to do with UCLA killing primates. I couldn't quite figure it out, but it was unlike anything that I have ever seen so I had to take a picture. You can see the line of cops on the left side and the protesters on the right.

Ok, I have an issue that Tom and I have been talking about today and I am wondering what everyone else thinks. There is a video on YouTube (just click on that link and it will take you to the video) of the Dick Cheney protest at BYU and then of the protest being broken up. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I was a member of BYU Democrats and still receive emails from them and I was a little shocked when I found out that BYU was going to allow this protest at all (even though I'm not very happy about the Cheney situation myself). Now that I see this video, I kind of wish that the protest hadn't happened. What do you think? Do you think it was handled appropriately?

I did actually do one thing this weekend. I organized some of our photos and posted them on Flickr. This is not all of our pictures, but this is a big project and it will be a little while before I get them all posted. You can view the pictures by clicking here. I also put a link to the picture under "links" on the right side of the blog. I think this is particularly useful to our families because that means that you have access to all of our pictures and you can now download them to your own computer. I'm going to explain how to do this, so let me know if this doesn't make any sense:
1. When you initially click on the link, it will show all of the "sets" of pictures. Each set has several photos. Click on the set you want to look at.
2. After you click on the set, you can see all of the pictures in each set. Click on the picture that you want to download.
3. Right above the picture there are several options. Click on "all sizes." It has a little magnifying glass next to it.
4. This should open a larger version of the picture. Above the picture it will say "Available sizes" and then list things like "small" or "medium" or "large." Click the size that you want.
5. Click the download button which is right above the picture. Now you can keep the photos on your computer or order prints of them if you want.

Ok, I know that everyone probably wants every single picture that we take (ha ha) so now you can have them. I will try to keep this updated in the future. Also, I would just like to mention that Heroes resumes tonight. Tom and I love this show and have been anxiously awaiting new episodes . . .

Moot Court

It turns out I got 3rd out of twenty people in my category in the moot court competition. I think I got robbed, but I'll concede to the possibility that maybe the girl who scored higher actually did better than me. However, my time doing debate in high school tells me that this is not necessarily true at all. Goodness is in the eye of the beholder and when you have different beholders, well, you can't really say much at all. This competition was just a mini competition, which was supposed to give us a flavor for next year, when they have two different big tournaments which make up the "real" competition.
Conclusion: I'm doing moot court next year and I intend to beat the pants off this girl. (note, her gender is immaterial, but since that is the only thing I know about her, it'll have to do) (also note, the guy in the picture is not me, but does give you some sense of what the competition is like) (one last note, I intend to add more stuff to the blog in the future so the burden isn't all on Erica to keep everyone up to date on our extremely fascinating lives)