Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Over the last two years, I’ve taken Lucinda to Disneyland many times. It started out as something for us to do that she would enjoy. But over time, I grew to like it, too. And yesterday I went there on a date for the first time ever. Kathleen came over in the morning and we headed down. My friend there was going to meet us at the gate, but he got stuck fixing the dragon and had to send one of his friends out to let us in. But we got in and got our day going.

We hadn’t thought about the fact that it was Friday before Memorial Day. The parks were pretty crowded. At least compared to what I’m used to from bringing Lucinda on random weekdays. We picked up passes for Soarin’ over California and then walked back to try out California Screamin’. The line wasn’t long and it was fun enough that we did it twice. I tried to take an upside-down picture in the loop, but I just got a nice shot of the seat in front of me. It’s tough to get the timing right with digital camera lag.

We headed over to Disneyland and picked up passes for Space Mountain. We figured we’d save them for later. But the line wasn’t too long, so we went in it and rode it once. After that, we did the Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain and Pirates. After all that, it was almost time for our passes to Space Mountain. We rode the train around to Tomorrowland, since I’d never been on the train before. When we got there it wasn’t quite time for our passes. So we waited in the regular line and rode once, and then took our passes and went around to ride again to finish our day. Both times we made a point to be in the front row to feel the wind. Since you can’t really tell how fast it’s going in the dark, the wind is the only real clue. And besides, it put us in a better position for the final picture.

At the end of the day, we went and had dinner at the Jazz Kitchen, since that’s become my sort of constant backdrop to see my progress. And I think my life has rebooted quite nicely.

I’ve never been much of a fan of commencement speeches. I was quite happy that there was not one at my college graduation. But I recently read the address by J.K.Rowling to the Harvard Alumni Association. And this really seemed like words of wisdom. Perhaps because it kind of sums up my life for the last two years:

I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive… And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination

I put some mint in my backyard planter a while back. It was just sort of going along until I fertilized it, and then it took off. I could hear the plant yelling, “Wheeeeeee!!!!” and it got to growing so big I was thinking I’d have to cut it back. So I was thinking of things I could do with the mint, and I hit on the idea of making Mojitos. So I looked up a recipe, and we were off and running. I’d never had a Mojito before, but Kathleen had, and she said they turned out quite well.

So I’ve passed yet another frontier in the kitchen. Good fun.

Last March, when we did the Topiary Tour, we stopped to see the Glendora Bougainvillea. At the time it didn’t look like much, so we wanted to go back and see it in bloom. Since it’s now May, we figured this was the time to do it.

It was a bit chilly, but a nice day for riding. We headed out straight east to Glendora. And when we got there, the bougainvillea was blooming, but not in a really impressive way. It’s big, but it just didn’t have all that many flowers on it. We figured that maybe that had something to do with it being nearly 110 years old. Anyway, we took a few pictures. And there was one vine growing up through one of the bougainvilleas that had some unusual and pretty flowers on it.

Our snack stop was at Classic Coffee in Glendora. After that, we headed south and came home by way of Cypress St through Covina. That was where we saw some front-lawn topiary. They looked a bit like Scottish Terriers, but we weren’t quite sure. Then, a bit farther down the road, I saw a new hot-rod mailbox. That’s the first one I’ve found since last summer.

Coming back through Santa Fe Dam, we were happy to see that the bike path had been repaved. And the cacti were flowering, too.

It was a nice ride.

42 miles.
cycling

Another person whose name you’ve never heard, but who changed the way we live today:

John Shepherd-Barron, credited as the inventor of the Automatic Teller Machine, has died.

“It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money… I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash.”

The first machine went online in 1967. And like the invention of the tortilla chip or ramen noodles, it changed the world.

Here’s his obituary.

Today’s bike club ride was a trip up to Tujunga to see if the house on Eby Canyon Road had been washed away last winter. We’d been up to see it last November, so we were curious to see if the deflection wall they were building worked. The house sits in a canyon right below the merging of two higher canyons, so when it rains, the wash there must turn into a raging torrent. It was a perfect day for riding.

We headed out across Eagle Rock, Glendale, and Burbank. I stopped to take a picture at Thirst Quencher Liquor. It’s not as funny as Hammered Liquor, but I thought it was amusing.

We rode through Shadow Hills. There were some steep bits, but it wasn’t too bad. Then we came out on Sunland Blvd and headed west to the mouth of Big Tujunga Canyon. The road into the neighborhood where the house is was under water. But it was only about 4-5 inches deep, so we just rode through it. Then up the hill on the other side and down into the canyon. And the house was still standing. The wash looked like it had been severely scoured by rushing water, and the culvert under the driveway was plugged. It also looked like the driveway had been buried by sand but they had had it plowed clear. So it looks like the wall worked.

Coming back across the wash, we rode through the water again, and then across Tujunga to get back to Montrose and our snack stop at Goldstein’s Bagels. It was a nice day to sit outside in the sun. Then we rode home by way of the trail over Devils Gate Dam and back into Pasadena.

It was a very nice ride.

47 miles.
cycling

This past week, I saw an item in the news about Julia Louis-Dreyfus getting a star on Hollywood Blvd. And how they misspelled her name. So of course I thought that this should be a quick sightseeing trip. It was cool and overcast. A “May Gray” sort of L.A. day.

We rode over to Hollywood and found the star. They’d said that they were going to have it remade, but none of us thought they’d get it done so fast. But it had been replaced by a corrected star. Oh well.

After the sightseeing stop, we headed up the hill by a new route. This went up some steep little streets and brought us out by Wolf’s Lair Castle. From there, we rode up to the Hollywood sign. Along the way, we had to stop for a photo opportunity at the house with the garage door painted with books. Then we headed down the hill, past Lake Hollywood, and up the other side to come down into Burbank.

We stopped for snacks at Priscilla’s in Toluca Lake. And then we headed home by way of the Linda Vista hill in Glendale. It was still kind of cold, so we actually appreciated the warmth of climbing a hill.

It was a nice ride.

40 miles.
cycling

Well, it was really the day before, but that’s what we had to work with. So I made a nice dinner for Kathleen, complete with a Lemon Drop. New adventures in the kitchen. I’d never actually made anything like that before.

We had a nice time.

Today’s bike ride was a tour of Downey to visit several local sights. We’ve done this ride before, but it’s been over two years, so it was time again.

The first stop was the oldest operating McDonalds, where they had a small topiary hedge in the shape of the old-style McDonald’s logo. Then we moved on to see the two apartment buildings that Karen and Richard Carpenter bought with their earnings from their first two hit songs. Then we went to see their family home, which had been in danger of being demolished a couple years ago, but it was still there. And the final stop was at Dennis the Menace park, which, strangely, was not open at 10:00 on a Sunday morning. So nobody was in there, aside from a bunch of homeless people.

The highlight of our morning easily had to be the guy walking his pet raccoon. A raccoon on a leash is something we’ve never seen before, and the raccoon was very cute. We also saw Herbie in a driveway in Downey.

It was a fun little ride.

40 miles.
cycling

Today, Kathleen and I took the Esotouric Tours “Pasadena Confidential” true crime tour. This is a bus tour around Pasadena and South Pasadena to visit sites of all sorts of horrible happenings. And it was hosted in part by Crimebo, the Crime Clown, who made balloon animals and told stories of death and mayhem.

It seems that back in the ’50s, there were a lot of married men who were secretly gay, and who ended up murdered by tricks they’d brought home. There were also a fair number of people who just went off their nut and killed their families. And I’d always wondered where Sirhan Sirhan grew up.

This tour is not for everyone, but if you like the Dearly Departed Tour and the Museum of Death, you’d probably like this as well.