Stan’s Obligatory Blog

On Sunday evening, we went to Hollywood to see Dean Cameron’s show, “The Nigerian Spam Scam Scam“. We’ve gone to see this show several times before, and it’s always tremendous fun. Each time, the show is a little different, and tonight was no exception. He was trying out a new ending for it, and as always it was tremendously funny. If you can, go see this show. As the web site says, “You’ll schnertz!”

On the way out of the theater, we passed a shop that sells set decorations for movies, and they had a display of chandeliers in the front window. And I thought we should go see the Chandelier Tree in Silver Lake on the way home. I’d been to see it with the Sunday morning bike club group, but this was a chance to see it at night.

So we had an evening of Nigerians and Chandeliers. Actually, that was a good combination.

I recently got a new app called “Field Trip” on my phone. It keeps track of where I go, and it pops up notices of interesting things to see and do in the area. So yesterday, it popped up a notice about a piece of art on the wall outside the Los Angeles County Hall of Records in downtown Los Angeles. The piece is called “Topographical Map”, and it is a stylized depiction of Los Angeles County. In the process of reading about this, I found out that the Hall of Records is one of only a very few office buildings designed by Richard Neutra. For some time, I’ve wanted to go see the houses on Neutra Place in Silver Lake, so putting these two together to make a tour seemed like a perfect combination.

We rode into downtown by the usual route, down Huntington Drive. On the bridge over the L.A. River, we had to stop for a Metrolink train. That’s the first time we’ve ever seen a train going by on that particular crossing, which always seemed odd, since it’s right near Union Station.

When we got to downtown, we went to the Hall of Records. “Topographical Map” depicts the geology and geography of Los Angeles County, complete with channels carrying water to represent the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the California Aqueduct. We also took a few minutes to look at the Hall itself. It was built in 1961, and bears all the hallmarks of the modernist style of architecture that Neutra was known for.

Continuing through downtown, we passed Grand Park and “Exxopolis“, across from City Hall. We rode down almost to USC before heading west on Adams.

We made a loop, coming up in Hancock Park for snacks at Noah’s Bagels in Larchmont Village. From there, we headed back east to Silver Lake and Benton Way. A short detour off Silver Lake Blvd brought us to Neutra Place. There were several Neutra houses on that short street.

The final part of the ride was our usual route home by way of Eagle Rock. We were all glad that the heat wave from last week had ended, and it turned out to be a very nice day for riding.

41 miles.

My blueberry muffins won second prize in the Los Angeles County Fair. Woo Hoo! I’ll be getting another ribbon to go up alongside the ones from 2012 and 2010.

The recipe is here, if you want to try making them: http://www.1134.org/recipes/blueberrymuffins-fair-2013.pdf

Today’s bike club ride was the route to Downey and the Columbia Memorial Space Center. It sits on a piece of land that used to be part of the old North American Aviation plant where they built the Command and Service Modules for the Apollo Program, as well as the second stage of the Saturn V moon rocket. Then, in the late ’70s, it was where the Space Shuttle was designed. Downey’s connection with the Apollo moon program can still be seen in things like the little strip mall called “Apollo Center”.

We stopped for drinks and snacks at 3rd Street Coffee in Downey. After that, we rode over to the Rio Hondo bike path for the ride home. The day got pretty hot, but not to the point of being unbearable.

41 miles.

This Saturday was a gallery day for us. We went to A+D to see the “Never Built: Los Angeles” exhibit. This is a show of models, drawing, and other materials from projects that were proposed, but were never built. The projects on display covered a full range from things that might have been pretty useful to things that were clearly absurd. For instance, the model showing proposed development behind Union Station was perhaps a bit grandiose, but it really wasn’t absurd. By comparison, the proposal for an offshore causeway freeway from Santa Monica to Malibu was perhaps the most absurd idea floated there. Most of the others fell somewhere in between. There was a map of the original plan for the freeway system, of which about one-half has been built. There was also a drawing showing Disney’s original plan for Disneyland in Burbank. They said it never made if off the drawing board because the city of Burbank thought it would have too much of a ‘carnival atmosphere’ and not be a good thing for the city. So Disneyland ended up in Anaheim. All told, this was an interesting exhibit.

After “Never Built”, we headed west to the Annenbery Space for Photography in Century City. The exhibit there is “Helmut Newton: White Women – Sleepless Nights – Big Nudes”, which presented a selection of his photography over the years, along with a short documentary film about his life. His style was very distinctive, and has influenced a whole generation of photographers.

This all made for a fun afternoon.

That’s a quote from Peter Athans, who is one of only a few climbers who have been to the summit of Mt. Everest seven times. He was quoted in an article in National Geographic about the importance of failure in any endeavor. I’d been reading that on the train to downtown, largely as a means of staving off the dread that comes from being on my way to an evening of climbing stairs.

So my goal for this evening was to do another five climbs for a vertical kilometer, and I wanted to try and flatten out my pace. That is, I wanted to try and have a smaller spread from the fastest to the slowest of the five. Also, I was hoping that if I could do that, my total might add up to less than the 53:57 I posted last Wednesday. And as usual, George was there, and had basically the same goal. So I had a goal, and some motivation.

The first time up, I held back a bit. I was aiming for a pace of 4 3/4 floors per minute, and I had to slow down a bit to not get too far ahead on the first time up. I was hoping that if I held back on the first climb, I’d have more energy for the later ones. And for the most part, the strategy worked. My first four climbs were very close in time, at 10:36. 10:39, 10:40, and 10:55. I was hoping to get the last climb in under 11, or at least not much over it.

I rested at the bottom for several minutes before starting the last climb. I’d remembered to bring some Gatorade, so I finished that before starting up. I managed to keep to the pace up to about the 20th floor, and then I faltered a bit. I had to dial the pace back to 4 1/2 floors per minute the rest of the way up. That’s the pace that works out to 11:22, but I was hoping that I’d go a bit faster, since I’d started out faster. And when I got to 49, I managed to eke out a bit of a sprint, just because I knew that I could stop as soon as I got to the top. And I managed to come out at the top at 11:18. That’s slightly faster than 11:22, but not by much. Still, I did manage to flatten out my times, with only 42 seconds difference from the slowest to the fastest. That’s better than the 61-second spread last week. But when I added up my times, they totaled to 54:08. So my average was about 2 seconds slower for each of the five climbs. Oh well, they can’t all be gems. As National Geographic had told me on the way downtown, there can be no success without failure. And no matter what, this one was still nothing to complain about.

Apropos of nothing at all, I just added it up, and so far in this round of practice, I’ve climbed the Wilshire-Figueroa building 49 times. One more time, and my total climbing will be 10,200 meters, which is just a hair over the height of Mauna Kea from the sea floor to peak.

Tonight at stair practice, I wanted to try an experiment. After last Wednesday, when I was able to do four consecutive climbs all under 11 minutes, I wanted to see if I could do four close to 10 minutes each. I knew I could go under 10 easily on the first climb, so I wanted to see how close to 10 I could get on the subsequent climbs.

Of course, it was probably a Bad Thing that I forgot to bring my water bottle along tonight.

The first time up, I was aiming for a pace of 5 floors per minute. That’s reasonable brisk, without being punishing. And I got to the top in 9:48. So the trick was going to see how close I could come to that pace on the second time up.

As it turned out, the answer was, “well, sort of close.” The first climb, I averaged about 11.5 seconds per floor. On the second, I did about 12.5. The third was about 13.9. I think the lack of water was taking a toll. After the third, I was pretty tired. But I still wanted to go up again, just for the sake of obstinacy and to have a vertical half-mile for the evening. But I was pretty well wiped-out by that time. So I didn’t even bother timing the last time up. I don’t really want to know how slow I was going. But I made it to the top.

After I came back down, I made a point of stopping at Famima!! across from the Aon building on the way back to the subway station. I got a quart of Gatorade and chugged it down on the sidewalk. And then I felt slightly better.

Oh well, they can’ all be gems.

It’s the last Sunday of the month, and that means it’s time for our ’slightly longer’ Sunday morning bike ride. Today’s destination was the Veterans Administration campus in North Hills. One of the buildings there was used for filming some of the scenes outside the American Embassy in Tehran in the film “Argo“.

The route out there was basically the La Tuna Canyon ride, but with about an eight-mile side trip at the apex of the route. We rode out across Glendale and Burbank until we got to Sun Valley, where we’d normally turn right and head up the canyon. But instead, we turned left and headed out into the San Fernando Valley. It was a fair distance to get to North Hills, but it was very flat. The only real downside was that it was a very hot day.

When we got there, we had to look up which building it was. Then we followed the signs to get there. As it turns out, the part of the building that was used for filming was on the back side, so we didn’t get to see it directly from the road. Also, the main building near the entrance is apparently used in “Grey’s Anatomy”, which I didn’t know, but one of the other people on the ride recognized.

On the way back, we stopped at a gas station and got some cold drinks. I sucked down a 1.5 liter bottle of cold water. It was hot.

When we got back to familiar territory, we’d ridden a bit over 40 miles, and now it was time to ride up La Tuna Canyon. That was a real grind. I was almost happy that I got a flat along the way. At least it was a legitimate reason to stop for a while. We regrouped at the top, and then headed down the other side, in to Montrose.

We stopped for bagels at Goldstein’s in La Cañada. Then, from there it was downhill all the way home.

56 miles.

Last week, I went to stair practice and did a vertical kilometer. That was the evening that George said he wanted to try and beat my previous time of 59:12 for the five climbs. And with that, I found I had the strength of Ten Grinches, and I managed to push the pace and do the kilometer in 55:43. So this evening, George said he was going to attempt to beat my 55:43 for the kilometer. And thus, I had a goal for the evening. My goal became to also beat the 55:43, and to do it in a convincing manner.

I started off planning a pace of 4 3/4 floors per minute from the start. That works out to about 10:45 for this building. Of course, the first couple of climbs went a bit faster, since I was fresh, but overall, I was able to maintain the pace for the first four climbs. This is the first time I’ve done four consecutive climbs under 11 minutes each.

In the elevator down the fourth time, I heard George talking. I was sitting down, trying to get the maximum rest. I looked through the forest of legs in the elevator, and I saw George sitting on the floor on the other side. We compared times, and his first four times were comparable to mine from last week. That meant he had a good shot at beating my 55:43 from last Wednesday. My first four were considerably faster than last week’s, so I knew that if I could just keep pace with him on the last climb, I’d have a better time for today. And I knew that if I did any reasonably fast time, I’d get my total under 55, which was my goal. So we decided to go up together and I was going to try and keep pace with him. Just before we started, he asked me if I thought I might get under 54 minutes. I didn’t think so, but I hadn’t taken the time to do the math and see.

The fifth time up, I was pretty tired. I was aiming for my 4 1/2 floors per minute pace, which gets me to the top in about 11:22. I knew this would be fast enough to still have the total under 55. I managed to keep pace with George up to about the 35th floor, but then he seemed overcome by something, and started pulling away from me. I tried to keep pace, but by the time we got to the 49th floor, he was about 1 1/2 floors ahead of me. I could hear his footsteps and breathing, and he was obviously working hard. Just knowing this was the end, I managed to eke out a little burst of speed at the end, and I stumbled onto the 51st floor landing in 11:22. Right on schedule.

On the way home on the train, I added up my times. They came out to a total of 53:57, which was quite a bit faster than I’d expected to be able to do. I really can’t complain about that. And George did his vertical kilometer in 55:39, so we both achieved our goals for the evening. So all told, it was a good outing.

Many thanks again to George for lighting a fire underneath me.

Tonight was yet another stair practice in downtown Los Angeles. I went with essentially one goal, and that was to do my first climb for speed. I worked out a pace, aiming to be at the top in about 9 minutes. Not the fastest I can do, but a reasonably brisk pace. This worked out to about 5 2/3 floors per minute.

I got changed and got in line for the stairs. I started my watch and headed up. At each time point, I checked the watch, and I managed to stay on target almost all the way up to the big landing on the 49th floor. The last two floors are bigger than the others, and I heaved up onto the 51st floor in 9:06. Close enough.

After a too-slow freight elevator ride back down, I headed up again. This time, my target pace was 4 3/4 floors per minute. This was aiming to get to the top in about 10:45, and the magic worked. I got to 51 at 10:44.

I headed back down again. Checking the time, I knew I wasn’t going to have enough time to make five climbs tonight. But I wanted to try my ‘easy’ 11:22 pace the third time up. I’ve done this pace for four consecutive climbs before, and it’s usually pretty easy. I started up, and almost immediately, I hit the proverbial Wall. What is usually an easy climb up the stairs quickly turned into a Death March. It was so bad that I just turned off my watch about halfway up.

Of course, after that horrible experience, I had to do it again. You know. Get back on the horse and all that. I didn’t even start my watch the last time. It was just a struggle for survival to get to the top. But I made it. Four climbs. A half-mile vertical.

Fun times.