There is nothing like spending a relaxing Sunday afternoon with a great group of girlfriends. This afternoon, four of my friends and I got together to celebrate Carol's birthday. Our destination of choice, The Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills.
We decided to take part in their famous "Afternoon Tea" in the "Living Room" of the hotel. The cute little tea sandwiches, the scones with yummy lemon curd, the delicious desserts and amazing tea was all a girl could wish for. The atmosphere in the lobby was truly relaxing from the true living room feel, with the fireplace lite, the piped in jazz music playing and to top it off, the beautiful sounds of a "live harpist" playing periodically throughout the afternoon. She even played "Happy Birthday" to my friend Carol as she was presented with her piece of delicious birthday cake.
This tea was excellent, tasty and to top if off very reasonably priced considering we were in Beverly Hills. I've been to many teas over the past years and this one ranks right up near the top.
I think it is really funny how excited people get when Halloween approaches each year with the repeated question, "What are you going to be this year?"
Well for me, this year I decided to keep it really simple and do something that was in line with my every day personally and professionally. So what did I do this year? Well, my work team and I decided that we wanted an original idea and we went with creating our version of "The Social Network".
I was my own Facebook page, two others were "Like" buttons from Facebook, another was Tweety the Twitter Bird and last but no least, another coworker was Foursquare. We had a great time with our team effort at work and get this, we actually WON the Lexus' Division's Group Halloween Costume Contest. So, I guess this year, "Originally" and "Simple" were the keys to our win!! Well to close this blog entry, what did you dress up like this year?
Well, it's goodbye until my next LA Life adventure to share.
Yesterday, my husband and I finally went to see the popular new movie, "The Social Network" based on the story behind the founding of the popular social networking site, Facebook. Going into the movie, I had heard all of the mixed reviews from friends and or coworkers, but I had an open mind about what I would actually experience and how I would feel about the movie after it was over.
I was pleasantly surprised in this film and think it was well done despite the fact that the movie was not 100% accurate according to the press and failed to involve the key people that the movie was based on like Mark Zuckerberg and all of the co-founders who I have never heard of until watching this movie: Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and the guy who founder Napster came along early in Facebook stages, Sean Parker who can be credited with helping Zuckerberg obtain Facebook's first venture capital funding, a whopping $500K. From this point on Facebook started its skyrocket to where it is today.
The movie was humorous, interesting and captivated my attention as I watched the story of how three Harvard classmates started out with a simple idea of connecting all the Harvard U campus dorm students together in an online network so they could get communicate more regularly online and keep up with what their friends were doing and how this idea grew enormously from Harvard to other colleges and then to anyone who so desired to join Facebook that resulted in connecting over 500 million people around the world today.
The film did portrait Mark as extremely bright, arrogant to many and someone who basically (or allegedly) stole the ideas that gave birth to today's Facebook from some of his Harvard classmates who were working on another social networking site and brought Mark into their project be a programmer to bring their site to life. Now I know there are three sides to every story and I will personally never know what really happened behind the real life scenes in the launch of Facebook. However, I will say this was a great movie and potentially could give other young people or the young at heart the drive and motivation to come up with an exciting innovative idea that just may make them the next Mark Zuckerberg, 26 years old and the youngest billionaire in world who created one of the most popular websites of today. Wow, is all I have to say.
When I left the movie and entered the restroom, many ladies were at the sinks washing their hands and discussing this film. I overheard one lady say, "Who isn't on Facebook today and I wish it was my idea". I found myself thinking the very same thing!
I loved this film and if you haven't seen it yet, take a look at the trailer and go check it out!
On Saturday afternoon, I joined over 100+ guests for a wonderful sunny afternoon at the home of the well-known director and producer Oz and Lynne Scott in Sherman Oaks, California. I was kindly greeted by the valet staff curbside and checked in and ushered through the red carpet entrance to the wonderful setting in the backyard. Our hosts for the day, Oz and Lynne greeted me as I turned to enter their wonderful backyard.
The setting was sprawling with white tents, white chairs, a perfectly placed stage over the pool area for all the jazz artist to come. I was treated to a delicious array of food selections (the tempura and jerk chicken were favorites of mine) and a variety of cocktails throughout our day. The event featured some of best jazz artist today like Sheila E., Kirk Whalum, Mindi Abair, Brian Bromberg, Patrice Rushen, Marcus Miller, Ndugu Chancler just to name of few. All of the performances were amazing, but my favorites of the day included the all star jam session and the all-women jam session ....AMAZING, AMAZING!
One of the coolest things they did at the event to raise funds was to feature over 100 rare and/or highly desirable auction items, like a Lakers team jersey signed by all the players in a frame with a picture from the NBA championship night, or signed boxing gloves and robe from the one and only Muhammad Ali or the special autographed framed pictures of Denzel Washington's best pictures to date to just mentioned a few items on display. I only wish I had an endless flow of cash to buy a number of items that were auctioned off!!
I also had the opportunity to see many recognizable LA faces like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Avery, Salli Richardson, Dondre Whitfield, Shaun Robinson, Pat Prescott, Take 6 just to name a few sightings of my day.
This was my very first time at this event in its 5th year, which benefits The Jackie Robinson Foundation - a national, non-profit organization founded in 1973 as a vehicle to carry-out the memory of Jackie Robinson through the advancement of education among the underserved populations. I am so honored that I had the opportunity to participate in this event and trust me, I will be there next year!!
