Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Here’s a picture of some of the flowers I have growing in my office. The southern exposure works well, and so the plants are happy. The Christmas cactus is also starting to bud, which means that it’s noticed that the days are getting shorter. I never turn on my office lights, so the plants get a natural day-night cycle.



On the way home today, I saw this homemade and sadly not waterproof sign down the street from our house. But I’m still always glad to see things like this.

Lucinda and I went outside to see if we could see the lunar eclipse this evening. It’s been raining off and on all day, so it’s pretty cloudy. But a gap opened up in the clouds, and we were able to see the moon. The eclipse was about 80% total. I got out the telescope and we looked at the moon for about 10 minutes before the clouds moved back in and covered it up.

Since I won’t be able to go riding tomorrow morning, I went for a ride today.

I rode over to Hollywood by way of Eagle Rock and the Franklin Hills, including crossing the Shakespeare Bridge on Franklin Ave. Then I went straight down Hollywood Boulevard, which is kind of strange on a bike. But even at 9:15 on a Saturday morning in October, there are tourists checking out the footprints in front of the Chinese Theater. Then I took a little detour south to go past our old house, as well as to stop to get a picture of Mickey’s Plants. Mickey Hargitay is probably best known for having been married to Jayne Mansfield, but now he owns a little greenhouse in Hollywood.

After cruising (so to speak) through West Hollywood, I turned and went up Nichols Canyon Road into the hills. This is a typical Hollywood Hills road. Narrow and winding. I stopped for a self-portrait in someone’s driveway mirror, as well as to admire the little creek and marvel at the fact that this idyllic scene is only one mile from the tourists on Hollywood Boulevard. Then, after several miles uphill, I came out on Mulholland Drive. There I saw a ‘deer crossing’ sign. Again, not what you expect in the middle of Los Angeles. And the scenic overlook had a picture of the Valley before it was built up, so we can see the contrast. Finally, I rode down into Cahuenga Pass, stopping to admire the view of downtown L.A. as well as the sideways view of the Hollywood sign. Then I continued down into Burbank, past Warner Brothers and all their big billboards for TV shows I don’t watch. Then I headed home through Glendale and La Canada, complete with a bracing trip up the infamous ‘Hospital Hill’. 51 miles.

Today I brought my camera to work so I could stop on the way in and take a picture of the big sinkhole that opened up on Del Mar Ave the other day. This is why southern Californians hate rain. It rains so seldom here that when it does rain, all hell breaks loose. In this case, part of one of our main streets just collapsed.


And on an unrelated note, here is a picture of me in my office having a typical day of sysadmin crises. It’s actually a bit unusual for me to be talking on two phones at once, so I thought the occasion was worth having a picture taken. And finally, I saw a funny bumper sticker on the way home.

 

I always like looking at the mountains after a rain storm. The peaks are still shrouded in the clouds. It just makes for a pretty view from the back yard. It’s just one more thing I love about where we live.

…and I got to go for a ride after all. So I did the same ride as last Sunday, to Old Town Glendora, but since I was riding alone, I took my camera along. So here arejust a few sights from along the ride. A radiator shop in Irwindale, a decorated mailbox in Azusa, and a somewhat enigmatic political statement in Monrovia. 40 miles.

  

…isnt’ going to happen. It’s raining here in L.A. for the first time of the season. Auuggghhh! I’m melting! I’m melting! Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world.

Oh well, there’s always next week.

I gave a short talk today at the Earthquake Research Affiliates meeting. The subject was the electronic mailing lists that I’ve set up for earthquake notification. Specifically, we have a set of mailing lists that people can subscribe to for notifications of earthquakes in California. Also, I’m working on a Virtual Mailing List that will use a database to allow people to select custom notification formats, thresholds and geographic boundaries. So I got to get up and talk about all this today. Fortunately, I don’t have a major fear of public speaking. I got over that years ago when I worked as an aerobics instructor and also when I took the ‘How to Perform Stand-Up Comedy’ class at UCLA Extension. So it was a fun time.



Also, I noticed that there is now a marker on the outside of the building commemorating the invention of the pH meter. I never knew that the American Chemical Society placed markers for stuff like this.

I checked, and my I Hate Texas page is number one in a Google search for “I hate Texas”. Heh. It’s kind of fun having the number one result for something.

It seems that every town has an ‘Old Town’ these days. And Glendora is no exception. Today’s ride went through Temple City and Irwindale to Glendora, where we stopped for a snack at the Classic Car Gallery coffee shop. On the way back, we went through Azusa, Monrovia and Sierra Madre. The ride was 39 miles, and with my ‘warmup’ beforehand the total was 51 miles.