Stan’s Obligatory Blog

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.

This evening was the 9th Annual Johnny Ramone Tribute at Hollywood Forever cemetery. This year, the event included a screening of “Cry Baby“, and a personal appearance by John Waters to introduce the film. Add to that that Johnny Depp, Traci Lords, and others from the movie were going to be there, Being a big fan of both the Ramones and John Waters, this was an event not to be missed.

Since Kathleen was laid up at home recovering from her surgery last Thursday, Lucinda and I made plans to go to this, along with my friend Lisa from the West Coast Labels stair-climbing team. I made us a too-big picnic to bring along, and dug out our Tommy Bahama chairs, and we were ready to go.

We set up camp on the lawn, and Lisa got in line to get autographs from John Waters. I didn’t bring anything for him to sign, largely because everything I have by him is already signed. And as it turned out, that was a good thing. She waited in line for a long time, and then they cut the line off just before she got to the front.

Lucinda spent some time sightseeing in the cemetery and taking pictures. They had Johnny Ramone’s statue decorated for the occasion, and they turned on the lights as darkness fell.

Before the film, they held question and answer session with John Waters and the others from the film on the stage. Lucinda was excited when she found out that the panel would be introduced by none other than Dita. They took some questions from the crowd and talked about making the movie. Then John Waters took the stage by himself to introduce the film. As always, he was very funny to listen to. After he finished, we watched the movie, and as always, it was very entertaining. It had been years since I saw “Cry Baby”, so all around, this was a very fun evening.

On Sunday after the Towerthon, we spent the day playing tourist in San Diego. In our case, that meant having breakfast with my father, and then going to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in Escondido. It was a perfect day to be outside, so that worked out well. Lucinda asked if she could do the zipline this time, so we got tickets for her and London to do that.

It was a fun and entertaining day. Highlights included feeding time for the meerkats, the new lemur exhibit, where Kathleen got closely inspected by one of the residents, and the baby antelope running around it its enclosure. Pictures of the zipline adventure are in Lucinda’s album. And the best of the animal pictures I took that day are here.

The new attraction on the L.A. waterfront is the battleship Iowa. It’s been parked there for about a year now, and a good bit of it is open as a museum. So we went to see it today.

The tour is self-guided, and takes in most of the upper part of the ship. We got to see a lot about the history of the ship in World War II, and later on in the Cold War. I recall thinking it was a bit odd that in the ’80s they were refitting several of the old battleships for active duty again. But they put cruise missiles on them, complete with nuclear warheads. And they had the Phalanx super-duper gatling gun to defend the ship from incoming missiles.

Here’s a video of a demonstration of the Phalanx in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmUfiPRrbMw

All told, it was an interesting afternoon.

Today was the latest edition of CicLAvia, and it was the most ambitious yet. They closed down streets all the way from City Hall downtown, out to Venice Beach. It’s not often, or even ever, that we get to ride to the beach from Pasadena, so today was our chance.

We rode downtown by our usual route down Huntington Drive. And once we were there, we picked up the CicLAvia route going south on Main St. The route went west on 7th out to MacArthur Park, and then south a bit to Venice Blvd, and then all the way out to the beach. We got there a bit early, so the route wasn’t officially open yet, but that was good, since it wasn’t crowded. By the time we got out to Culver City, I could feel the cool ocean breeze. That’s nice, since we just don’t get that in Pasadena. We made very good time, and we were at the beach by a little after 10:00.

We rode out as far as we could to get as close to the water as we could on our bikes. Then we stopped for a bit to watch the skateboarders. That reminded me of the documentary “Dogtown and Z Boys“, and how the 1977 drought led to great innovation in skateboarding, since the water shortage meant that there were a lot of empty swimming pools around. It was pretty entertaining watching them.

Heading back, the crowd had grown considerably, and most of the ride back was like Friday evening on the 405. Still, it was a nice day, and we made it back to downtown, and then we headed for home. I’d estimated that the total ride would be about 60 miles, and when I got home, I had 59.4. So I went and rode around the block just to get to 60 miles. It was a fun day.

A couple weeks ago, I went downtown to meet with Evan from KCRW so we could climb the stairs at the Aon building and talk about the sport of competitive stair climbing. The final piece that he made was broadcast yesterday. And here’s the link to the blog posting at KCRW about it, including a Soundcloud link so you can listen to it:

http://blogs.kcrw.com/whichwayla/2013/04/the-hardest-sport-youve-never-heard-of

This weekend was the San Diego edition of the American Lung Association’s stair climb. I’d originally planned on doing it, but after being sick this week, that just didn’t seem like such a good idea. But we’d already planned on going there to visit my father, and also to see the baby seals and the baby panda.

We went to La Jolla Cove on Saturday afternoon to see the baby seals. There were a lot of them out on the beach, and because it’s pupping season, they have the beach roped off to keep people away. So we got to see all the seals snoozing on the beach.

Saturday evening, we went to dinner with Dad at Costa Brava in Pacific Beach.

Sunday morning, we went to the zoo early, since we’d read that the baby panda was on display from 9:30 to 11:30. But when we got there, they told us that the baby panda was not going to be out today. Still, we got to see the other giant pandas, as well as the red pandas. And we also got to see a baby koala, which pretty much made up for the missing baby panda.

All in all, it was a fun weekend, even if it didn’t involve climbing any stairs.

Pictures are here:

http://www.1134.org/gallery/main.php/v/stan/nature/sandiego032013/

Here’s a selection of pictures from the rest of our weekend in Las Vegas.

On the way there, we stopped at the beef jerky place in Baker. Kathleen likes their jerky a lot. And it’s a chance for a photo-op with the alien.

When we got there, we met up with the whole West Coast Label stair-climbing team for dinner at The Peppermill. And after that, we went back to the hotel to get ready for the race on Saturday morning.

On Saturday afternoon, we headed downtown to go see the The National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement. Since that name is a mouthful, it’s just called the Mob Museum. There, we saw the entire history of the Mafia from its roots, and how Prohibition was the thing that made the Mob into a major organization. In later parts of the museum, they went into the Kefauver Hearings and RFK’s crusade against the Mob. An interesting afternoon.

On the way back from downtown, we saw the big sign at the Plaza, advertising “Hawaiin Favorites!” Being spelling and grammar geeks, we were of course appalled. That, or the sign was made by LOLcats.

Dinner on Saturday was the obligatory prime rib and martini that I always have in Las Vegas. After that, we went back to the Stratosphere and went up the tower, since I’d been up there earlier, but I was too wiped out at the time to look at the view.

On Sunday, we went to the Erotic Heritage Museum before heading home. We got to see such treasures as Larry Flynt’s gold-plated wheelchair, and a walrus penis-bone. It was an amusing time, and I highly recommend it.

After that, we headed home. Waze showed us that we were just ahead of the big wave of traffic coming back to L.A., and we made it home early enough for dinner. It was a fun weekend, aside from my disappointing performance on the stairs.

Last Thursday when I was on my way home from stair practice in downtown Los Angeles, I saw a sign in Union Station that said they were having a popsicle stick bridge-building competition there on Saturday. I love going to see engineering contests, so I thought this might make for a fun destination for a bike ride. So Silvio and I rode down there this morning to see it.

When we got downtown, I saw the first gas station I’ve seen with all its prices over $5.00. A sign of the times.

There were teams from a lot of local high schools there, all showing off their bridges and the story of how they built each one. It seemed that there was a bit of convergent evolution at work, since a lot of the bridges had similar looks, but there were some that were different. In particular, we talked to the faculty adviser for one of the teams, and he said that a careful reading of the contest rules said that in the final testing, force would only be applied right at the center of the bridge span. So their design did not have a lot of bracing at the ends, but had a very sturdy arch in the center. Clever. We talked to one of the other teams and asked them about the testing they had done on their bridge. They said that they had tested it up to some absurd weight over 500 pounds. That was impressive. It was fun to get to see and talk to so many nerdy high school kids.

Afterward, we headed home the same way we’d come. It was a nice day, but I needed to get back early. Still, it was a fun little diversion.

26 miles.

It’s New Year’s Eve, and time for a nice dinner out at Takami in downtown Los Angeles. This is the Japanese sushi and robata restaurant on the 21st floor of a building in the middle of downtown. So there’s good food and a nice view, including my two favorite buildings, Aon Center and the U.S. Bank Tower.

We rode the train there this time, since it’s easy, fast, and avoids driving on New Year’s Eve, which I think is a worthy goal. And the restaurant is right around the corner from the Metro station, so it’s convenient, too.

We had some orange-ginger martinis to start. They were quite good. And the Takami Edamame. It’s just like regular edamame, but sauteed with butter and soy sauce. Then we ordered a selection of different things and had a little bit of everything.

Since part of the dining room is out on the terrace, I got a few pictures of downtown from up there. I also made a point of taking a picture from Union Station on the way home. We could see the U.S. Bank Tower with the crown lit up red and green for Christmas, and also the Lindbergh Beacon on the top of Los Angeles City Hall.

It was a fun evening out, and we were home by 10:00, so that makes for a perfect New Year’s Eve.