Stan’s Obligatory Blog

7/30/2019

I didn’t think it was possible that city services could be *too* good…

Filed under: — stan @ 10:44 am

Last night, a big branch broke off one of the trees across the street from our house. This happened at about 10:30 or so, and I made a note to call Pasadena Forestry first thing in the morning to have it taken care of. We went outside for a look, and I took some pictures. I was kind of excited that I finally had a reason to use my Big Serious Flash on the camera. The branch that broke off was about 8 inches thick or so, and it fell down on the street, blocking about half the street. Fortunately, our street has very little traffic, so this wasn’t a problem.

This has happened before:

http://www.1134.org/blog/2005/08/28/have-i-mentioned-that-pasadena-has-emgreatem-city-services/

http://www.1134.org/blog/2004/07/29/crack/

Both of those times, the fallen branch blocked our driveway. But this time, the branch wasn’t blocking anything to speak of.

So we went to sleep. And we were rather rudely awakened at 05:20 by a chainsaw about 50 feet from our open bedroom window. I looked outside, and there was a city crew there, cutting up the fallen branch. I went outside and asked them why they were doing this at 00-dark-whatever, rather than waiting until sunrise. They said that they had been told by the Po;lice Department that it was an emergency and needed to be cleared immediately. I called the police, and they said that one of the neighbors had called it in, and they pointed the finger at the Fire Department as to why it was deemed to be such an emergency.

But seriously, looking at the pictures, it’s pretty clear that this could have waited. By 6:00AM, I’d already written a letter to our city councilman.

And it’s also happened before that they sent a crew out in the middle of the night for something that really wasn’t an emergency:

http://www.1134.org/blog/2007/09/12/hey-look-no-branch/


7/28/2019

Covina Bowl

Filed under: — stan @ 7:44 pm

This past week, I saw an article in Curbed L.A. with a map and list of some of the best still-surviving examples of 1950s Googie architecture. We went to see the Premiere Lanes bowling alley sign, the former Johnie’s Broiler in Downey, as well as others. So, looking at the list in the article:

https://la.curbed.com/maps/googie-map-los-angeles

I saw that Covina Bowl is on the list, and we’d never been to see it. So that was today’s bike ride.

We started out going south, for no particular reason other than to pad the mileage out a bit. Then we headed east and made a loop Through Covina and West Covina. We saw the former bowling alley, and then went for snacks at Panera in West Covina. Then we headed home by way of Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area.

42 miles.

Route map and elevation profile.

7/21/2019

Whittier – Including more teapot!

Filed under: — stan @ 3:07 pm

Today’s ride was a visit to Whittier, and the Whittier Greenway Trail. Along the way, we also went to see a couple of odd landmarks, including the hovering teapot in Temple City, and Dork Street in Pico Rivera. We’ve been to see both before, but we revisit them from time to time, just because they’re entertaining little landmarks.

In Whittier, we rode most, but not all of the Greenway Trail. At Greenleaf Ave, we turned north and went in to Uptown Whitter for snacks at Mimo’s Cafe.

Coming back, we took the Rio Hondo bike trail, and at the northern end, we found the trail partially flooded. This has happened before, but this time we thought it was probably not to deep to ride through. So that’s what we did, and it wasn’t too bad.

45 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

7/7/2019

Scoops Ahoy!

Filed under: — stan @ 1:45 pm

On Friday, I saw an article on LA Eater about how they have a pop-up Scoops Ahoy ice cream shop in Burbank. This is a promotion for “Stranger Things” on Netflix. These sorts of things happen from time to time, like the time we rode out to visit the Kwik-E-Mart they built as a promotion for “The Simpsons”.

It was a perfect day for riding. Cool and overcast. Perfect for a ride to Hawkins.

About 42 miles. I’m not completely sure, because my GPS turned itself off in North Hollywood.

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