Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today we went over to Hollywood to The Knitting Factory to go to “Baby Loves Disco”, which is an afternoon disco party for kids. We had read about this in the L.A. Times this week. It sounded like fun, but as it turned out, it was mostly kids much younger than Lucinda. Most of the kids there were babies and toddlers. So Lucinda was older than most of them. She still had some fun, but it wasn’t as good as it could have been if there were more kids in the 6-9 range.

After that, we walked down Hollywood Blvd for a bit. Lucinda wants to get a fairy backpack for school, and we thought we might be able to find one there. We immediately got caught in a crush of people in front of the Chinese Theater. Apparently there was some sort of event there and they said that Julia Roberts was supposed to be there. So we had to push our way through throngs of people in monsoon heat to get past. We didn’t end up finding a fairy backpack, but we did find a nice zebra-pattern bag for Lucinda to use for when she goes to swimming lessons, so it wasn’t a waste. And Lucinda was very amused by the Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum at Hollywood and Highland. She wants to go back there some time.

Route map and photo locations

Today I met Gene for a ride out to Encino to the velodrome. I had heard that they were going to be doing 1/10-scale radio-controlled model car racing there. I thought that this would be something interesting and different to see.

On the way out, we stopped off at the tiny house we’d seen back in April. We wanted to see if it had sold, and indeed it had. It had a new coat of paint and an owner out tending the garden. We chatted with her a bit and we were glad to see that the tiny house had found some love.

When we got to the velodrome, some of the racers were doing practice laps. The cars were going quite fast. Oddly enough, there was a rather attractive young woman with a camera crew there. Given that radio-controlled race cars are kind of a geeky hobby, her presence seemed a bit odd. So we asked them about it. They were from The Outdoor Channel, which has a show called Inside R/C. So they asked if we wanted to be in the sign-off for the show. We stood on either side of the host, Anna Curtis, while she recited her spiel. She finished with, “and now it’s time for us to go, because these guys want their track back”, while we just smiled stupidly. It was fun. They said that the show would probably air in the fall, so if anyone has cable and can get me a screen-capture, that would be great.

We left the velodrome and headed back across the park. We stopped to refill our water bottles at the water fountain right below the sign warning that ‘lewd conduct’ would be prosecuted. I’m not sure I want to know what goes on in that park after the soccer games are over.

We took Burbank Blvd to Van Nuys and then went down to Chandler, which is a nice, tree-lined street. The shade was a good thing, because I got a flat there. So we stopped in the shade of a big tree and I fixed the tire. The eastern part of Chandler is where the Orange Line busway is, and we got a look at the big articulated bus. It was very quiet, which is maybe why when it first opened it broadsided lots of cars on the cross streets.

On Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake we saw the Barris Custom shop. He is perhaps best known for building the 1966 Batmobile, but his shop makes a lot of weird vehicles for the movies.

In Glendale we stopped at a Carl’s Jr. and got some cold drinks. I filled my water bottle up with ice and water and then drank the whole thing twice. We sat in the air conditioning for a little while before braving the heat again.

In Eagle Rock I hit the proverbial wall. There was no shade and it was well over 100 degrees. I just started riding slower and slower. On the Colorado hill I actually shifted down to my lowest gear and just crawled up the hill. Fortunately, after that there were no more hills. But we had to stop at Memorial Park in Pasadena so I could lie down in the shade and pour water on my head. I think I had heat exhaustion. It was so bad that for the rest of the ride home, I put my foot down at every light, rather than doing my usual track stand. And at the end, Gene rode with me all the way to my street just to be sure that I wasn’t going to keel over.

When I got home, the thermometer on the back porch said 110 degrees. That’s about 44C for non-USAnians. I drank my water bottle four times on the ride, which is over 3 liters of water, but I was still 7 pounds (3.2kg) lighter when I got home. Yikes.

59 miles, one flat tire, and heat exhaustion.
cycling

Today’s ride was a solo effort. I’d forgotten that Vikki was going on vacation, or “on holiday”, as she says in her Canadian parlance. But it was a nice day, so I went anyway.

Leaving campus, I saw a car with a couple of “Wizard of Oz” murals painted on it. “Don’t make me get my flying monkeys!” Then I rode through Old Town and past the Rose Bowl to the hill on Lida.

On the way up Lida, I saw a makeshift memorial on the side of the road for “Blue Boy”, which I gathered was someone’s bike, destroyed in a collision with a car. I guess that means that his owner wasn’t too seriously hurt, which is a good thing.

At the top of the hill, I saw another “Lost Pet” sign. This time it was for a desert tortise. Last week it was a lost snake. There are people who think that lost dogs and cats can predict earthquakes. So what could a rash of lost pet reptiles foretell? Global warming?

Heading down the hill, I made the loop back into Pasadena. I took Ventura across to Fair Oaks and then took a small side trip to Mountain View Cemetery. I’d read recently that this cemetery is used a lot for filming, and apparently today was no exception. There were two separate productions going on there. I rode past both of them to find the grave of Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist from Caltech. When I was a physics major in college, Feynman was a legend. Reading his book Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman was entertaining, inspirational, and it also taught me how to pick locks. Truly a lasting legacy.

Leaving the cemetery, I rode the rest of the way across Pasadena and then down the long hill back to the office. When I got there, I took a Myspace-style portrait in the reflective glass of the back door.

19 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.
cycling

Today’s bike ride was a route that Gene selected because it goes on a lot of tree-lined streets. The idea was that the route would have lots of shade. It was already hot at 8:00 in the morning, so we were glad for the choice.

We rode across Pasadena and up into La Cañada. Then we went down Hospital Hill in to Glendale. That was where I saw the “Lots of Pets” car. My first thought was to wonder if they had gotten permission from Mattel for the logo, which was a takeoff on “Hot Wheels”, but the Supreme Court decided that parody is a protected form of free speech, so maybe it’s not a problem.

At the bottom of the hill, we turned and took Mountain and Kenneth across Glendale. We stopped at Paradise Bakery. I had my usual two chocolate eclairs and a quart of water.

After the stop, we headed into Griffith Park and rode through the park down to Fletcher, where we turned and started back home. Some guy without a helmet joined up with us for a bit on Riverside before we turned off. Then we headed back through Atwater Village to Eagle Rock.

We rode across Eagle Rock and into South Pasadena. Then we went north into San Marino and back into Pasadena. And then, POW!!! Doug’s back tire blew out. I immediately whipped out my camera and took a picture for the Flat Tire Gallery. Since he was almost home, he said we should just go on. So I rode out to Arcadia with Newton and then came home by way of Sierra Madre.

50 miles.
cycling

Today was the summer edition of the big Body Art Expo at the L.A. County Fairgrounds. A lot of the tattoo purists don’t like this show, because it’s not put on tattoo people. But at the same time, they promote it well, and it draws a big crowd. So it’s something that’s accessible to the masses.

It was hot out there in Pomona today. I got there about 3:00 and just about roasted while waiting in line for my ticket. And even when I got inside, it was still hot. But that’s all right. High temperatures tend to encourage people to take off their clothes, which is a good thing at a tattoo convention.

I saw my friend Rick down at the end of the hall. He was posing various girls on a motorcycle there and taking photos of them. The bike’s owner was threatening to put the seat up for sale on EBay after Rick was done. And one of the girls was Trisha, who we saw at the Erotica L.A. show a few weeks ago. She had her hair down today, and as always, she looked great.

Shannon had a booth at the show this time. I stopped by a couple of times and she was busy all the time, so I think the show was good to her.

I also saw Anna from Anagram Fine Art there. We chatted a bit and I also pawed through her kids-size shirts to see if she had one in Lucinda’s size.

I saw a half-leg tribute to Elvis and Marilyn Monroe, as well as some permanent makeup and a very nicely done octopus tattoo. I saw my friend Tina there, too. She was in a wheelchair, since she had had surgery on her leg and was ordered not to walk for two months. So I volunteered to push for a while and we went around and visited with some of her other friends.

It was a fun time, and the pictures are in my tattoo convention photo gallery.

We recently saw that the Go-Go’s were going to be playing a show at the Greek Theater in honor of the 25th anniversary of “Beauty and the Beat”. Cathy and I both saw them back in the early ’80s when we were young and single, and we also went to their reunion show in 1989 when we were married. So we thought it might be fun to go and take our daughter along. She knows all the songs, and she thought this sounded like great fun.

We had an early dinner and headed over. We got parked in solid there and walked into the amphitheater. It was dusk when we got there. The opening band was Morningwood, and they were very good. Lucinda didn’t ask what their name meant, which was probably just as well.

The Go-Go’s took the stage at about 9:00 and their first set was all the songs from “Beauty and the Beat”, which was a nice trip down memory lane. It’s hard to believe it’s been 25 years, and their songs obviously appeal to the younger crowd. There were lots of people in our age bracket there with their kids, and the kids were all singing along and looking like they were having a great time.

The first time I saw them was in 1981 at a tiny little club in Houston. My friend Mike got free tickets, and we spent the entire show pressed up against the stage, practically looking up Charlotte Caffey’s skirt. But it was Jane Weidlin that we all fell in love with. She had the best stage presence and personality, and we all left there that night with a huge crush on her. And tonight she showed that she still has it. She bounced around the stage, and my crush was renewed again. But then again, I’ve always had a thing for cute girls with short black hair, even if they are in their 40s.

We got lucky in that their was a mom and her young daughter sitting next to us, so Lucinda and the other little girl enjoyed watching the show together. They danced in the aisle and sang along. It was very cute.

Towards the end, Lucinda started to get tired, but the show ended at 10:30, which wasn’t too late. The Greek has a curfew due to the houses nearby, so the shows there never go late. When it was over, we headed home. It was a fun little adventure.

Today at lunchtime I went riding again with Vikki. She’s training for Ironman Canada in August, and she ran something like 14 miles in the morning, so today’s ride was a little slower than usual. But it was still a fun time.

We did the same Lida Loop we’ve done several times before. This time we saw some filming going on in Old Town. Then we rode past the Rose Bowl and up the hill into Glendale. Then we rode down into La Cañada and then back into Pasadena.

We usually go down Holliston to get back to the office, but today Vikki suggested a side trip. She had been reading American Bungalow in the dentist’s waiting room, and they had an article about Reinway Court, which is off Los Robles in Pasadena. So we went to see it.

It’s a little bungalow complex. Many little houses that look like they are from the 1920s or so, all on a fairly large lot. Apparently, the family that owns it has had it for many years, and they are restoring all of the units, and they are going to be for rent. It was interesting to see.

The last part of the ride was down Green St and back to the office. It was a nice ride. On the way home after work, I saw a sign pleading for the return of a lost pet snake. And then I saw that a house down the street from mine is for sale again. This is the house where they filmed a scene for the new “Nancy Drew” movie. It sold a few years ago for something like $600,000. But the real estate market here in L.A. has slowed down a lot since then. My guess is they won’t be able to get that for it today. But we will see.

18 miles at lunch, 26 for the day.
cycling

I had to take a trip to the Bay Area for work. Since I hate to travel, I decided that I would try and make it as much of a fun adventure as possible.

The trip up was fine. It was a little unusual to see another airplane landing right next to us in San Jose, but it was interesting to watch. Since my last trip, I figured out that I don’t want to wait for the car-rental-shuttle bus. It’s stupid. 3 1/2 miles on the bus to get to a place that’s 400 yards from the terminal. So I did the overland bushwhack on foot to get to the car rental lot. They were out of the tiny little cars that I’d asked for, so I ended up with a big and comfy car. It was fine.

When I got to the office, it was all-meeting, all-the-time. Which was fine. We had lunch at a nice little restaurant in Menlo Park.

At the end of the day, I got out my directions and got in the car to go up to Sonoma State University. My old net.friend Sara was on a trip there. In nearly ten years that I’ve known her, this is the first time we’ve ever been in the same state at the same time. So I figured it was worth 77 miles to visit. On the way up, I played tourist a little bit. The row houses in San Francisco were painted some amusing colors. And I’d never been across the Golden Gate Bridge before.

When I got up to Sonoma, I found Sara in Target. The airline had lost her luggage, so she was buying essential items. We had dinner at Applebee’s, which was about the only sit-down restauraunt in sight there. And while we were having dinner, I got to see her geeky side, text messaging herself as a method of taking notes. We had a nice time visiting.

Tuesday was another all-day meeting. I also got to go in Building 2 for the first time. This is another of the buildings there that have been reinforced with big obvious steel girders on the outside. From the picture, could you guess that earthquake scientists work inside? Lunch was at Angelo Mio, which used to be my favorite restaurant there, but it’s apparently changed owners over the years. It was still good, but not quite as good as before.

For dinner on Tuesday, I met up with Grace, who was over the hill from Santa Cruz to get her knee injected. She also brought along the famous Malcolm. We had a nice dinner at the Left Bank, where they had tables outside so we could sit with Malcolm, and Grace could feed him little bits of calamari. Malcolm was very cute and friendly. He sat on my lap, but I think that was just so he could get a better view of the food on the next table. At the end of dinner, I took our souvenier photo Myspace-style. Single-handed with the camera at arm’s length.

Wednesday was more meeting, followed by the trip home. We got finished a little bit early, so I managed to get on an earlier flight back. Total time away from home: 54 hours.

Route map and photo locations

Today’s ride was a sightseeing trip to see two castles in the Hollywood Hills.

We started out on Paloma, and we hadn’t gone more than a few blocks when Michael had to stop. His pedal was coming off. I had a look at it, and it appeared that the last mechanic who worked on it had cross-threaded it. The crank threads were stripped out, and it was a total loss. So he pulled out his phone to call home for help, while the rest of us continued on.

The church in Eagle Rock didn’t have a witty sign up today. Just a hand-lettered paper saying that the sign was being rebuilt. Maybe they need to use the Church Sign Generator.

When we started up the little hill on St. George, Matt and Newton blasted by me. I got out of the saddle to chase them and PANG!!! It was a tremendous spoke-breaking noise. But when I looked down, my wheel wasn’t wobbling too badly. So I rode up the hill and we found a shady spot to stop and have a look. I’d broken two spokes, right next to each other. So that explained why the wheel was still mostly straight, but just hopping a little. There really was nothing to do but go on.

We turned off Franklin and headed up the hill. The streets up there are narrow and rough. But they are also very quiet. We rode up Hollyridge to the first castle. On the way up, we passed another house with a castle-like stone wall in front. But it wasn’t the real castle. When we reached the real castle, it was quite obvious.

From there, we rode down into the canyon below the Hollywood sign. Then we rode up the other side, coming out at the top of the ridge by Wolf’s Lair Castle. I took a couple of pictures there before we saw Gene walking up the street, holding his broken chain like a dead snake. We were all astounded by this, since we’d had a very bad run of mechanical problems today. Doug mentioned that someone he knows always says that when Mercury is in retrograde, it’s bad for mechanical things. Not that any of us believes in astrology, but that’s about as good an explanation as any for what happened.

Someone had a chain tool, and Gene had a quick-fix link, so they pieced it back together. While they were doing that, a very attractive young woman on a bike stopped to chat for a few minutes. She said that she lives close by there in the hills. Sadly, that probably means she won’t ever come out to Pasadena to ride with us.

When the chain was fixed, we started out again, heading toward the Hollywood sign. When we got to the junction at Mulholland, we’d lost most of the group. I rode part way back and didn’t find them. So I pulled out my phone and called Newton. He said that Gene’s chain had broken again and that they were still back at Wolf’s Lair. So they ended up having to take several links out of the chain to get it to go back together.

While we were waiting for them, Doug and I rode the short distance up Mulholland to get a close-up view of the Hollywood Sign. Then when we were re-grouped, we headed down the hill to Lake Hollywood. From there, we rode up one more steep hill and then down to Barham for the long downhill into Burbank. When we got there, we stopped at Priscilla’s for snacks.

On the way down the last hill, I had noticed that my handlebar tape was unraveling. I had lost my handlebar plug, so the tape was coming undone and flapping in the wind. Is there no end to the torment? I ended up stuffing it with a paper napkin for the ride home.

After the stop, we headed back home by the most direct route possible. Being on gimpy bikes tends not to encourage taking the Long Way Home. Fortunately, we managed to make it back to Pasadena without further incident.

43 miles, one stripped pedal, two broken spokes, one broken chain, and unraveling handlebar tape.
cycling

Today’s ride was an easy, flat one. We rode east through Arcadia and Temple City, and then north to Sierra Madre.

The only picture I took was of a half-finished topiary rocking horse on Grand View in Sierra Madre.

From there, we came back into Pasadena on Sierra Madre Blvd, and then back to the office. It was a bit cooler today than it’s been lately. Still hot, but not like the last week.

19 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.
cycling