Stan’s Obligatory Blog

This evening, Kathleen, Lucinda and I went to see Cirque Berzerk again. I’d taken Lucinda to see them two summers ago. Apparently, they’ve moved uptown since then. The shows that time were in their tent, set up in the middle of a field outside downtown Los Angeles. This time, they were performing at Club Nokia at L.A. Live.

The show was every bit as much fun as it was before. The story line was basically the same, but the acrobatics were a little different, but still very impressive. Kathleen remarked that it was much more theatrical than she’d expected. As I’d told her, their show sort of defies description. But it’s very, very fun.

It was good fun and a weird evening in all the right ways.

School doesn’t start again until Monday, so I took Lucinda and her friend Maddy to Disneyland today. It was a nice day, and we had a good time. It wasn’t too crowded, although it wasn’t as empty as it was when we were there back in September. Still, we got to ride California Screamin’ eight times. And we even saw the ‘hidden Mickey’ on it.

We spent the whole day there, and we had a nice time. To finish off, we had our now-traditional dinner at the Jazz Kitchen in Downtown Disney.

It was good fun.

Addendum: The rest of the pictures from the day are here.

New Year’s Day is a day when it’s best to stay home. My house is right by the end of the Rose Parade route, so it’s basically impossible to go anywhere. So we took a walk to see a bit of the parade, and also to see the floats close-up when it was over.

The day started with the B-2 flying over, which is amusing in its own peculiar way. After all, under normal circumstances, seeing one of those planes flying by would mean that Something Very Bad was about to happen.

One of my most favorite things about the parade itself is seeing floats being towed over the finish line after breaking down. Dunno why, but that’s always amusing.

There was a float this year dedicated to Ronald Reagan. And I got a chuckle from the portrait of him on the end that totally looked like Leonid Brezhnev.

And the city of Burbank float had little floral F-117s and an SR-71 Blackbird on it. More airplane fun for all the airplane geeks.

Well, the rain finally stopped, and I got to go for a bike ride. I met up with some of the people from the regular Sunday group, and we headed out to the San Fernando Valley to see the Great Wall of Los Angeles. This is a mural painted on the side of a flood control channel that covers the entire span of Los Angeles history. It starts at the south end with giant slots and mammoths, and goes all the way to the present.

We headed out and rode straight west across Eagle Rock and Glendale into Burbank. Then we took Oxnard St out into the Valley. Along the way, we saw an impressive driveway gate. Nice and shiny. Then we got to the Wall. It’s pretty impressive.

Coming back, we took the bikeway along the Metro Orange Line. We stopped at Panera in North Hollywood for a snack. Then we headed home. We went across Glendale and then up to La Cañada. When we got back to Pasadena, we took Howard St across so we could pass by the house where Sirhan Sirhan grew up.

It was a nice ride.

48 miles.
cycling

Tonight, Kathleen and I went on the Museum of Neon Art’s Holiday Lights tour. This is a tour around Los Angeles to look at both neon signs and holiday lights. They rent a sightseeing bus, and everyone sits up top to look at the lights.

Sadly, it was raining.

One of the first stops on the tour was a L.A. Live to see the big LED billboards. Between that and the constant rain, we all felt like we’d entered the world of “Blade Runner“.

They got a bus with a plexiglass awning over it. The sides were still open, but we had at least a semblance of a roof over us. But the roof leaked, and so it was generally a very wet experience. We brought along a towel and blanket, as well as our fur hats, so we were reasonably warm. Overall, it was all right.

The tour went around downtown and then up into Hollywood. They had a stop at Farmer’s Market so we could get out and get something hot to drink.

The final stop was at the House of Davids. Truly a magnificent sight when it’s all lit up.

It was a good little adventure, even if we did get kind of soaked.

So here’s my official recap of the year. My annual Christmas letter, which takes the events of the entire year and crams them down to one side of one sheet of paper.

Read it here.

Today was the first Cystic Fibrosis Foundation stair climb in Los Angeles. The venue was the Figueroa at Wilshire building. The climb was from the exit door on the side facing 6th St up to the 51st floor. They said that’s 49 floors and something like 1274 steps.

I’d done the practice climb there a couple weeks ago, so I had an idea what to expect. I had been a bit disappointed in my performance at the Willis Tower climb and also at the U.S. Bank Tower. Both those times I’d felt that I really hadn’t been mentally able to really give it all, and I didn’t make my goals. So today was the time to do it right.

In the practice climb, I’d done it in 9:32. That was all right, but I really thought I should do better. At the Aon climb last April, I did 11:42. Scaling for the different heights of the buildings, if I did the same pace here as at Aon, I’d get to the top in 9 minutes. So my goal for the day was to do 9 minutes or less. I recently worked out what I think is a more efficient way of doing the turns on the landings, so I wanted to try that out.

They had us line up with the competitive stair climbers in front. That basically meant Mark and his West Coast Labels group. I got in line towards the rear of the group, since I knew that most of them would be faster than me. I set my metronome at 80 and off I went.

As always, by about the 20th floor, I was hurting. But that’s normal. And I found that the necessary concentration to remember how to do the turns was a useful distraction. I just kept time with the metronome and tried not to look at the floor numbers. I didn’t pass anyone, and I was only passed by one other guy.

When I finally looked up at the floor numbers, I was at 40. And I thought, “Crap! I don’t feel all that bad. I could have gone faster!” But I kept to my pace until 45, and then I made a sprint for the finish.

My time was 8:42, which I was quite pleased with. In retrospect, I maybe could have gone a bit faster, but the pace was good, and I’m going to use that same setting next time I do the Aon building. And my time was good for second place in the 50-59 group, which is not bad. Mark was the only guy my age who went faster, and he’s very, very good at this. I feel no shame being beaten by him.

Overall, it was a very fun time. The CFF people did a good job organizing and running the event. Now I’m looking forward to the Stratosphere and Aon climbs next spring. Onward and upward.

Addendum: I did some quick math, and my power output for this climb works out to 288W, or 0.39 horsepower. This is my highest power output to date in these climbs.

Addendum 12/9/2010 – They posted the official results, and I’m 11th overall, 7th in men, and 2nd in 50-59. Results are here.

On Saturday, Lucinda and I went to San Diego to visit my father. When we do this, we make a point to find one or more other things to play tourist with while we’re there. This time, we went to La Jolla Cove again to see the seals, and we went to the “Science of Aliens” exhibit at the Air and Space Museum.

It was a nice weekend, and we’re thinking about going back in February when the seal pups are being born. Nothing like baby seals to brighten up one’s day.

Here are the two official pictures from the Sears Willis Tower stair climb. The first is right at the start. I’ve got my metronome set for my pace, and I’m feeling strong and fresh.

The second is at the top, 102 stories later. At that point, it was a struggle just to keep moving. The funny part is that, judging by the shadows in the second picture, the photographer was using a flash. Yet I have no memory of his being there, or of seeing the flash. As I said, it was miracle enough that I was still upright and moving at that point.

Any questions?

This afternoon, Kathleen and I went to Loyola Marymount to see the “Deadly Medicine” exhibit about how the Nazis used eugenics as justification for the Final Solution. As one would expect, this was a horrifying topic, but one that we should know about.

It all started innocently enough, with basic research into genetics. This then led down the proverbial ‘slippery slope’, and people found that they wanted to use genetics to try to explain all the ills of humanity. Then it was just a short step to deciding that certain people should not be allowed to reproduce. And then the Nazis took that a step further and decided to ‘euthanize’ people they considered ‘unfit’. It all began with good intentions and ended horribly.