Stan’s Obligatory Blog

This week is the last week of the “Jaws” 50th anniversary exhibit at the Academy Museum, so we went out there so Kathleen could see it.

While we were there, we also saw the “Barbie” exhibit and an exhibit about “The Wizard of Oz”, where we got to see one set of the original ruby slippers.

We parked across the street at the Petersen Museum, so on the way back, we went through their lobby and saw one of the original cars from “Bullitt”.

There’s a vape shop near the Village at Lake Arrowhead. But their choice of a typeface for their sign is perhaps a bit unfortunate. Whenever I see their sign, my brain wants to read it as “Vomit Vape”.

This morning, I was out in the back yard, and I was hearing a lot of hawks calling to each other. I’d seen them around before, but this time, I saw one of them perching up on top of one of the trees in front of our house. So I went and got the Serious Camera with the long lens, and got a few pictures.

A few days ago, I got a reminder email from the Academy Museum that the “Cyberpunk” exhibit was closing Sunday. I hadn’t even heard about this, so I decided I needed to go see this. So I made arrangements with my friend John to go see it on Friday.

The “Cyberpunk” exhibit was smaller than I’d hoped, but still very good. There was a video presentation with clips from films from “Tron” to “Ex Machina” to the present day. Then, in the second floor gallery, they had some artifacts, with a phone booth from “Blade Runner”, a costume from “Tron”, concept art drawings and props from several movies. All in all, it was entertaining.

And when we came out of the second floor gallery, we saw that the big 50th anniversary exhibit about “Jaws” was next door. So we went to see that. There were a lot of original props from the movie, and video presentations about topics from making the film, including some Super-8 film clips taken on the set. One piece was about John Williams and the music. They had a little keyboard with keys that lit up as cues so you could play the shark music right there. There was also a montage of clips from many, many films and TV shows with a “…gonna need a bigger…” scenes. Which gives an idea of the cultural impact of the movie.

Overall, it was a fun afternoon.

It’s not generally well-known that we have the Wende Museum in Culver City, which is a museum dedicated to the history of the Cold War. And because of the Wende Museum, we have the largest piece of the Berlin Wall outside of Germany. It’s on Wilshire Blvd, across the street from Hancock Park and the tar pits, and it’s just a few blocks from Park La Brea and the Jessica Cafe inside.

The day started out cold, but it warmed up nicely. So it was a good day for riding.

45 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

It’s the Sunday before Halloween, and time for our annual “Down for the Count” ride. This is a trip to Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City to visit Bela Lugosi’s grave. This was one of the first themed rides we ever did, back in 2007.

One the way out, we stopped briefly in Exposition Park to see the progress on the Oschin Space Center building. The rest of the ride to Culver City was pretty straightforward, aside from a flat tire on the way out and one on the way back. We stopped in at Grand Casino Bakery for drinks and snacks. It was a perfect day for riding.

56 miles

Route map and elevation profile

This week we heard that the Big Boy statue in front of their Downey restaurant was mangled in a car crash, the restaurant painted him green and put some foam brains spilling out of his broken head. So that was the ride destination for this Sunday. We also had heard yesterday that the Columbia space museum in Downey was moving a full-sized model of the Space Shuttle for display at the museum. So we figured we’d go by there and see if it was parked there.

The route was our standard route for doing south to Downey. We stopped briefly at the oldest operating McDonald’s. They have a little museum there about the history of the company, and also, they have bathrooms. Then we went a bit farther south to the Columbia museum, but there was no sign of the shuttle model. Then we went for snacks at 3rd St Coffee in downtown Downey. Then straight home, basically by the same route we took to get there.

43 miles.

Route map and elevations profile

It’s been about a month since we went to see the Childless Cat Ladies Art Project in Burbank, so I thought we should go back and see if they’d added more to it. So that was the ride today, along with a plan to go through Griffith Park and see where the city closed off a stretch of Griffith Park Blvd to cars.

When we got there, we saw that there were indeed a few new pieces up on the fence, including a kitty asking not to be eaten. Heh.

There’s still about a month to go before the election, so I think we’ll have to go back one more time

43 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

46 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

A few days ago, there was an item on the local TV news about an artist in Burbank who decided to make a pop-up art project dedicated to the ‘Childless Cat Ladies’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlZhvjMUw10

So, of course my instant thought was, “we need to go see this!” So that was the bike club ride for today.

It was a very nice day for riding. The heat wave of the last few weeks had broken, and I actually needed a little Hoover Blanket under my jersey to be warm when we started out. Nice problem to have in August.

Route map and elevation profile