Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today’s bike ride was the classic La Tuna Canyon route. Across Glendale and Burbank, and then up the four-mile hill. Very nice.

It was a chilly morning, but otherwise nice for riding. Right near the start, Pat broke a spoke in his front wheel. The wheel didn’t go too gimpy, so he just continued riding. Then I broke a spoke in my back wheel. The wheel went out of true, but fortunately, I carry spare spokes. And I’m pretty good at the Black Art of wheel truing. So after a few minutes’ stop, we were back on our way.

On the way across Burbank, we took a small side trip to see the backyard pirate ship. Then we took Glenoaks up so Sun Valley and turned off to climb up La Tuna Canyon. As always, it was a nice uphill slog. Just the way I like it.

Coming down the other side of the hill, we rode across Montrose and stopped at Goldstein’s Bagels. We saw a Tesla parked there. That’s something you don’t see every day. By then it was a pretty nice day. We sat in the sun and just enjoyed the pleasant weather. After all, it’s getting ready to rain soon.

It was a nice ride.

40 miles.
cycling

Today’s bike ride was the “Glendale Vistas” route. This has some nice hills, and also a stop at Paradise Bakery in Glendale. I checked the calendar, and we hadn’t done this route for almost a year, so it was time.

It was a perfect day for riding. One of those achingly nice days we get in the winter here. We took a meandering route up through La Cañada and then all the way down Chevy Chase through lower Glendale. Then back up to Glenoaks and Paradise Bakery. One of the guys got the “Chocolate Mouse”. It had a little mouse made of icing on top of it.

When we were leaving the bakery, I noticed a small wire sticking out of my back tire. I tried to pull it out, but it broke off, leaving the rest of it embedded in the tire. The tire seemed not to be losing air, so I just let the proverbial sleeping dog lie.

We headed up into the hills. This ride has some steep ones, including the one where I broke my cassette two years ago. No such drama today, though. Just a nice view of downtown L.A. from the top.

The route home went through Montrose and up Hospital Hill. Then back home across Pasadena. And when I got home, I took a closer look at my tire. It turned out that the wire was just embedded in the wall of the tire, and never punctured all the way through. So I got some pliers and pulled it out. It was a nice ride.

40 miles.
cycling

It’s my first full day post-divorce. I feel a bit like Prometheus unchained. I’m just sort of standing next to the rock, wondering how I’ll occupy my time now without the eagle coming down to eat my liver every day.

This past Sunday marked two years since my odyssey through divorce hell began. At the start, I never dreamed it could take so long. But when one side is unreasonable these things happen.

Back in August, somebody finally decided to come to the table and negotiate in good faith. We talked, and in 45 minutes we had hammered out an agreement. Just for curiosity, I wanted to see how many minutes two years represents:

2 x 365 x 24 x 60 = 1,051,200

Over one million minutes. All to get to an agreement that took 45 minutes to make. Doing some more math shows that we spent 0.00428% of the time negotiating like adults. Sheesh.

But now the agreement is finished, and we’ve both signed it. And I just got word that it was signed by the judge today.

We are done.

I just added it up, and I rode my bike 5,199 miles this year. This is pretty good compared to the 6,013 miles I did last year. Under the new scheduling regime, I rarely get a chance to ride on Saturdays any more, so I’m pretty happy that I still got in a lot of miles.

Sadly, this year, this total was less than the distance I drove my car. I don’t even have an accurate count of that. I estimate that I drove between 8,000 and 10,000 miles this year. And the curse of my life this past year has been that each girlfriend lives farther away than the one before. But on the other hand, my new car is quite comfy. So I’m not complaining.

From just after World War II until the mid-sixties, Arts and Architecture magazine did a series of articles on the “Case Study Houses“. These were houses that they had designed and built by the top architects of the day. Most of them are in the Los Angeles area, and today we rode to see three of them.

The basic route was our “Toluca Lake” ride. We rode down through Eagle Rock and then up the Los Angeles River bike path. Then past Griffith Park and Forest Lawn to get to Toluca Lake and Case Study House #1. Fortunately, David had read the articles about the houses we were visiting, so he acted as docent, telling us the story of the house and why it was designed the way it was.

Leaving Toluca Lake, we headed up into La Cañada to Case Study House #15. This one was built at a slightly odd angle on the lot in order to take advantage of views of both the mountains behind it, and, on clear days, a view of the ocean off in the distance.

Coming down off the hill, we rode over to Altadena for the final stop on the tour at Case Study House #20B. This one is on the somewhat-famous “Christmas Tree Lane” in Altadena.

Finally, we rode across Altadena and back down the hill to the park. It was a very nice ride.

43 miles.
cycling

Today was Rose Parade day in Pasadena. In practical terms, that means we’re under virtual house arrest here. It’s difficult to get anywhere, so we just plan on staying home. We got to see a lot of the horse teams from the parade, since they park their trailers in our neighborhood to pack the horses up at the end of the parade. It’s always strange to see horses walking down our little suburban street.

Wells Fargo had a pair of old-style stagecoaches in the parade, and we went to see them. They gave Lucinda a little plush stuffed Wells Fargo Rose Parade horse.

The group with the fairy wings made my day. The girls were cute in their costumes, and the horses were wearing glitter. What’s not to like there?

Their were also groups of high school kids walking around with trash cans, shovels, and brooms to clean up. I hope they’re getting extra credit for doing that.

Lucinda was with me for New Year’s Eve this year, so we decided to go out together for a fancy dinner. Our first choice was L.A. Prime on the 35th floor of the Bonaventure downtown, but they were doing a special menu. It was an $80 four-course prix-fixe, and they told me that they didn’t have any options for kids. So that was out. I went looking for other restaurants downtown that had views, and I found Takami. I called them, and they said that they were doing the regular menu, so I made us a reservation.

The place was very nice. The food was all good. We ordered a selection of small things, one entree, and dessert, and we shared it all. It was a nice evening, and nice way to close out the year.

It’s nearly the end of the year, and so I posted my Christmas-letter-summary of the year. It distills everything that’s happened in the last year down to one page.

O hai! Iz tiem fur mah yer in LOLcats.

2009 wuz gud yer. Thar wuz ups an dwns, but nothin liek teh wrenchin catastrofe dat wuz 2008. Teh yer startd out OK, but den took a turn foar da wurse in da luv area. But mah luv life has recoverd, an things ar once moar gud in mah wurld. In othr newz, I hads to buy new car dis yer, since mah old car needd part dat iz no longr made. I tooks trip to Texas foar da 16th anniversry party ov teh club I startd. I finily got couch foar da livin room. Teh divorce negotiashuns draggd on an on an on. An I turnd 50 yers old. So her iz teh story of mah yer, told in picturez frum icanhascheezburger.com:

kthxbai