Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Low-carb diets were all the rage not so long ago. But I’m on a low-car diet. For a long time, I’ve wanted to not have to use the car for grocery shopping. But there are a lot of heavy and/or bulky items that I have to buy that just don’t fit in my backpack. So I bought a little bike trailer on craigslist. And now I can do my grocery shopping by bike. The trailer can carry 100 pounds, so that pretty much covers anything I need for a week. It’s slightly uphill to the store, so on the way home, the trailer just pushes me down the hill. I think this is going to work out nicely.

This is a Good Thing, since I’m having to use my car a lot more than I’m used to due to the current unpleasantness at home. So anywhere I can cut down on driving is good. Based on my last three years of car usage, it costs me 58 cents per mile to drive. It’s 1.25 miles to the grocery store, and that’s $1.45 saved on each trip. That will add up over time.

Herb Peterson, the inventor of the Egg McMuffin has died.

Peterson came up with idea for the signature McDonald’s breakfast item in 1972. He “was very partial to eggs Benedict,” Fraker said, and worked on creating something similar.

The egg sandwich consisted of an egg that had been formed in a Teflon circle with the yolk broken, topped with a slice of cheese and grilled Canadian bacon. It was served on a toasted and buttered English muffin.

It’s always important to note the passing of those who have so profoundly affected the world we live in.

The Los Angeles Times “L.A. Now” blog featured the Abandoned Couches blog yesterday. While it’s not my invention, I am an occasional contributor to that site. The L.A. Times entry even linked to one of my couches.

I may be here alone, but I’m still going to eat well. Tonight, I made grilled chicken and asparagus on the barbecue. I use charcoal as a starter, and then throw on a piece of oak wood. It gives a nice flavor. I made a Thai-style peanut sauce for the chicken, and some jasmine rice. And I have leftovers to take for lunch tomorrow.

For the last several months, I’ve mentioned stress and my life being in a hole. And I’m not going to talk about it in depth here. But this is the essence of it:

Tom DeLonge says, “The song was inspired by a friend whose marriage was kind of falling apart. It touched me so deeply that I was up one night crying for him — I felt so hurt.”

It’s Tuesday, so it was time for another evening hike in Griffith Park. I’ve been doing these hikes for several weeks now, both to socialize and to get out of the house. It’s all part of my Master Plan to deal with a world gone mad.

Tonight’s hike was up Mt Hollywood, which is the highest point in Griffith Park. Most of the hike was on fire roads. On the way up, we took a detour up a steep foot trail, but the trip down was all on roads, since the footing is generally better there for walking in the dark.

I got a picture with Susan, since we were the two on the hike who had shirts with snarky sayings on them. And when we got to the top, I took a picture of the mist creeping through Cahuenga Pass with the sunset in the background. That was nice.

Overall, it was a fun time.

Today’s ride was Ruby’s in Whittier route.

I’d never been on this ride before. By the time I got to the start at Live Oak Park in Temple City, it was already starting to get warm. I took off my bubble wrap. And I messaged my friend Susan in Detroit about it, since she’d sent me a message about being snowed in there.

The ride down was nice. I good bit of it was on the bike path along the San Gabriel river. It was a pleasant ride. The only problem was when I was riding with Chris, and we got to talking, and we missed a turn. We got halfway up the hill on Colima before we realized that we’d missed the turn. So we went back. Chris thought she had a map in her bag, but it turned out she’d given it to Steve. So she asked for directions. The guy she asked didn’t know where the street we were looking for was, but he knew where Ruby’s was, and we were very close. So we just found our way over there.

Everyone was already there by the time we got there. They were all settling down for lunch, but four of us had to get back early, so we started back immediately. The route back was a bit different from the route out, but it was all right.

In Pico Rivera, I got a flat. Fortunately, there was a nice shady spot to sit in to fix it. Then, when we started out, we only got about 50 feet before Garett got a flat. This marks his first appearance in the Flat Tire Gallery, and only his second flat in the year he’s had his bike.

The rest of the ride back was very pleasant. It was a perfect spring day for riding.

55 miles.
cycling

My office is in an old house, and we have a patio with a little barbecue on it. So in honor of the beginning of Spring, we had a cookout today. We do this fairly often when the weather is nice. I usually do the cooking. And it’s great fun. Have I mentioned lately that I really like my job?

Lucinda is home sick from school today, and I’m home with her. So we went out in the back yard to check on the baby hummingbird. It’s getting more feathers, and it pretty much fills the nest. Since I’m getting a pretty good collection of photos, I made a separate album for them: http://www.1134.org/gallery/hummingbird

Today I went to the Nuart to see “The Unforeseen“. This is a documentary about land use and development in Austin, Texas. We lived there for four years from 1991 to 1995, and were witness to a bit of the debate over development there. In particular, there was a big controversy about development in the Barton Creek watershed. The environmentalists said that it would degrade the water quality of the water in Barton Springs, which feed the city swimming hole. There was a big referendum campaign when we were there, with the city voting to stop the development. So then the developer had the state legislature pass a bill to overrule the city. This bill was vetoed by Governor Ann Richards. But then, when George W. became governor, they passed it again, and he signed. And apparently, all the bad predictions have come true. The film included underwater views at the springs in 1996 and 2004, and the difference in the water clarity was stunning.

As much as I’ve always said that I hated living in Austin, there’s really nothing wrong with the place. It just wasn’t where I wanted to live. But I was always curious about what had happened with the Barton Creek development issue, since that was such a large part of local politics during our time there.

And one other treat was that I got to meet Carol, who I’ve known online for several years but never met in person before. So that was fun.