Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Tonight I went over to Griffith Park for the Tuesday night hike. We did the “Backyard Hike” route, which I guess might be named for the fact that we walked right by some people’s backyards in Los Feliz. It was pretty long and fairly hard as hikes in the park go. And it was dark before we even set out, so the trail part was a bit challenging. The parts on fire roads were easy to follow, even though there was no moon. There was a bench on the trail at one point, so I was able to prop the camera up on it to get my souvenir picture with the lights of Hollywood in the background.

Overall, it was a pretty good evening out. Beats the hell out of moping around at home.

On Friday night I went to Hollywood for the premiere party for “The Surrender of O”. This is the sequel to the 2006 feature “O: The Power of Submission”. I’d gone to the party for that one, too. This is because both were made by my pornographer friends, Ernest Greene and Nina Hartley. They were having the party at Boardner’s in Hollywood, and they invited me to come over for it. Apparently, Boardner’s is where they do Bar Sinister on Saturday nights, so I guess it’s an appropriate venue for this sort of thing.

It was a pretty amusing evening. Lots of familiar porn stars were there, along with lots more that I didn’t recognize. And of course I saw lots of my friends from the leather-and-chains scene here in L.A. So overall, it was a pretty fun evening. I kept thinking that I wish they’d had stuff like this back in 1983. I’d have been there every night if they did.

Earlier in the evening, I’d also stopped off at the Dresden Room on Vermont to join the Center for Inquiry crowd for their monthly Drinking Skeptically event. They were amused because I came dressed for the party, so I sort of stuck out. But I made a point of demonstrating the use of the vampire gloves I’d brought along, which was quite amusing.

But alas, the party was a ‘no cameras allowed’ event, so I don’t have any pictures. But there were a lot of photographers from the porn industry press, so if you’re curious, there are probably pictures out there on the net.

Yesterday was the Great Southern California Shakeout. This caused great excitement around my office. But the thing I found most amusing was Conan Nolan from KNBC wearing his San Andreas Fault tie for the occasion. Usually, when he gets sent out to do earthquake coverage, it’s on short notice. So there’s not usually time to dress for the occasion.

Tonight I went to do another night hike in Griffith Park. Since I finished painting the living room, I have more free time, so I went looking for a Wednesday night hiking group to join. We went up Mt. Hollywood, but by a different route than I’d done before. It was a pretty good time. The pace was brisk, but not punishing, so it was pleasant.

The views of the city lights are nice from the top, and we even saw a very bright green-tinged meteor while we were up there.

Overall, it was a good time, and a good excuse to get out of the house.

Today, I took Lucinda down to the ADT Center velodrome in Carson to see the last day of the USA Cycling national championships. We went to see this last year, as well as the year before, and we’ve always had fun.

When we got there, they were doing the finals of the team sprint. After that was the women’s points race, which was a lot of fun to watch. The winner was part of a breakaway that lapped the pack. They each got 20 bonus points for doing that, and that was enough to clinch the victory.

The highlight and last race of the day was the Madison final. There’s a lot of action with the big group of riders doing their exchanges. It’s hard to photograph, since the light inside the building is not so good, but it’s still lots of fun to watch.

Lucinda and her friend also got to meet Sarah Hammer there, since she was at a table promoting the OUCH Pro Cycling Team.

It was a fun afternoon.

Today’s club bike ride was over Turnbull Canyon, which is always a fun time. But due to scheduling difficulties, there was no way I could make it to the start in time. So Susan, Steve, and I went on another ride. We went over to North Hollywood to see the Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation at Valhalla Cemetery.

We rode out across Eagle Rock, Glendale and Burbank to get to Burbank Blvd, which took us across the 5 freeway to Victory Blvd. Then we rode west to get to the cemetery.

The cemetery is just off the end of the runway at Burbank Airport, which is a fitting place for a monument to aviation. There were planes taking off over our heads the whole time we were there. A lot of major figures of early aviation are buried there. And befitting the tribute to flight, there was a very large bird’s nest built near the top of the building, too.

Coming back, we headed south to Toluca Lake and then down the L.A. River bike path. Along the way, we saw the Motion Picture Costume Cleaners, which seemed appropriate, since there is a lot of movie business going on in that part of town.

We finished by coming across Highland Park and South Pasadena, and then back home to Pasadena. It was a fun little ride.

44 miles.
cycling

On Sunday afternoon, Susan and I went out to Pomona to the Los Angeles County Fair. Neither of us had been to it in years, so we thought it might be a fun thing to do.

We saw lots of animals, which is perhaps a bit surprising, since there is very little agriculture going on in Los Angeles County. On the other hand, ‘very little’ is not ‘none’, so there are farmers here, and they have crops and animals and such. So that was fun and interesting.

On the other hand, they did have a booth selling body jewelry, which is fitting for L.A.

We went to see the crafts and food, too. After looking at the baked goods, I’m totally going to enter my perfect blueberry muffins next year.

We had some pretty good barbecue for dinner, and then we got ice cream from Dr. Bob’s. It was a fun afternoon.

So I was out at lunchtime, walking to the store to get some food for dinner. And I felt the ground move. At first, I thought it was a small earthquake, since it didn’t feel like much. But then I saw the big crane at the construction site on San Pasqual swaying. And I immediately turned around and headed back to the office.

When I got there, I realized that the quake was much larger than I’d thought. And I was greeted by this scene of chaos and devastation in my office. Oh the penguinity…

The Los Angeles Times today reports that California is considering ‘pay as you drive’ car insurance.

I’ve long thought that this was a good idea. I’ve only driven about 1,000 miles a year for the last five years. I’ve even found cobwebs on my dashboard. Yet I’m still paying the same amount for insurance, regardless of how little I’m driving.

So bring it on. This sounds like a Good Thing.

This afternoon, Susan and I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Bank of America is having a promotion where having a BofA credit card is good for free admission there on the first weekend of the month.

We went to see the “Los Angelenos” exhibit. For some reason, the opportunity to see the art collection of Cheech Marin was just too good to pass up.

Afterward, we went to see the Contemporary Art building. That was interesting. We saw a lot of nice art, and some pieces by famous recent artists as well. I think the giant balloon animal was our favorite.

Before we left the park, we took a walk around the tar pits. As always, I’m amazed at plants that grow right in the middle of the tar.