Hello again, blogging.la: I like to take a break from my regular beat to check out what’s new in my hometown of Los Angeles – especially within the district of San Pedro, one of our city’s less appreciated corners.

We got all kinds of shiny new stuff going on in our Port Town. New cafes and restaurants. A streudel place. Yeah, I know, random, but hell, I’ll try it. With new lofts must come new nightlife, or who would live there? And though I like the idea of more local attractions that will keep Pedrans spending money in Pedro, conserving gas and supporting local businesses, I’ll admit to being a bit sad that 6th Street’s prime dive bar, Tommy’s, has been replaced by Crimsin, a far swankier establishment with a clever (get it? hey, at least they tried) name.
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Tonight I caught a screening of Port Town, a film about life on the edge of Los Angeles in my native San Pedro at the historic Warner Grand Theater.

For a bargain $10, I spent a few hours reconnecting with the San Pedro in which I grew up, catching up with the San Pedro that’s growing up around me right now, and learning more about the people who call San Pedro home and have done their best to make it a better place. Written and directed by San Pedro local Jack Baric, the film is a collection of vignettes: our towns greatest love story, a local football team’s big fight, a Sicilian fisherman’s struggle in a nearly forgotten industry, the POW from San Pedro who called the Hanoi Hilton home for too many years to imagine.

Most of those stories are at least passingly familiar to San Pedrans. Two segments, however, were educational in unexpected ways.
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Or so proclaims the menu at Papadakis Taverna in San Pedro – which, you have to admit, is a pretty strong hook.

If you’re from San Pedro, you know Papadakis. You also know the family that owns the famed local establishment – a large, beloved Greek family who helped write our local town history and bring being a Trojan fan to a whole new level. If you’ve gone to Pedro High or USC, you probably had a Papadakis in your classes and if you’ve been to a USC Football game, you’ve probably cheered one on as well. But this post is about their restaurant located in Downtown San Pedro, steps from the waterfront and miles from ordinary.
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I’ve been a proud voter in the City of LA since I turned 18. I come from the kind of family that takes photos of your first visit to the polling place. I enjoy it. I’m a nerd like that.

Today was the first Election Day in awhile that I was able to cast my ballot in person, rather than via an absentee ballot. It wasn’t the worst experience because, fortunately, my eyesight is fairly decent and I have enough patience to double check my work.

I had a few Florida-style flashbacks, however, as I attempted to match up the ballot and the bubbles – which, by the time I reached the bottom of the ballot, allowing for parallax error, shadows, and general reading tempo had become almost completely off-set. See?

The gray lines are rather slim, but if you click on the image you’ll get a closer view. This photo was taken by holding the camera much more directly over the ballot than most people would be standing.

It wasn’t an impossible task – but I felt uncertain enough in my inking that I counted down from the top and matched everything up, just to make sure.

If you haven’t voted yet today, keep this in mind and take a second or two longer to make sure your machine helps you cast the votes you intend to cast.

Don’t forget – polls are open until 8:00pm tonight and, so long as you are IN-LINE at 8:00pm, you have the right to cast your vote. Also, you always have the right to cast a provisional ballot (at ONE polling place, that you believe to be your correct polling place) – regardless of whether they can find your name on the rolls or not. Lastly, if you obtained an absentee ballot and forgot to mail it in, all is not lost. Simply take your filled out, sealed ballot to the polling place (either yours or ANY polling place within Los Angeles County, if you’re an LA County voter) and deposit it in the box. Or surrender it and vote regularly with everyone else. Still have questions? Don’t know where to go? Click here.