Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today was a day for playing tourist right here in Los Angeles.

We started out at the MPAA gallery in Beverly Hills for the “It’s Alive!” exhibit. This showed animatronic animals and monsters from movies. For some reason though, T-Rex from “Jurassic Park” just isn’t all that fearsome when he’s only 10 inches tall. We saw Aslan the lion, from “Narnia”, who apparently has no legs. And I got a picture of Cathy with Mighty Joe Young’s hand and head. It was interesting to see. The actual models were not animated, but they had TVs set up around the room showing clips from the movies that the models had been used in.

After lunch, we went to the Marvel Super Heroes exhibit at the Science Museum. This was really intended to be just a basic science exhibit for kids, and the super heroes were just there to try and get the kids interested. Still, Lucinda had some fun there, lifting the car with Iron Man’s mechanical arms and such.

The last part of the exhibit was about the history of comic-book super heroes and how they have evolved with our culture. There was a large poster of Peter Parker hanging up his Spider-suit while declaring, “and every boy… sooner or later… must put away his toys and become a man”. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought this was very sad.

Outside the museum, Lucinda did some climbing on the rock scupltures, and then she and Cathy both were swinging on the ropes attached to the ‘Big Lever’ exhibit.

By the time we were ready to leave, it was close to 5:00, so we thought we should just go to dinner, rather than brave the Los Angeles traffic to get home. Since we were close to Downtown, we went to Union Station so that Cathy could have her official Birthday Dinner at Traxx. We’ve been there a few times before, and it’s always been good. And this time was no exception. We had a very nice dinner outside in the courtyard.

It was a fun day.

It’s Cathy’s birthday, so we went down to Orange County to her parents’ house. We had lunch and a chocolate cream pie. Then Lucinda stayed there with Grandma and Grandpa while we went out for the afternoon. On the way back, Cathy got to visit with Barney the greyhound.

This was the 21st time I’ve been with Cathy on her birthday. The first was when we were first dating. I lived in a little apartment building at the time, and we were treated to one of the neighbors singing “Free Bird” really loud. We still talk about that. Today was a nice day, but not so exuberantly nice as to make either of us sing “Free Bird”. Still, we had a nice time.

Have I mentioned lately that Cathy is the best?

Route map and photo locations

Today’s ride was a special one. I met Gene and Jon at the park and we rode out to Westwood to do some sightseeing.

We took the standard route through South Pasadena and Highland Park. Then we crossed the L.A. River into Silver Lake, and then on into Hollywood. We rode down Hollywood Boulevard, which is always a kind of surreal experience. Then we took some back streets through West Hollywood to get to the Sunset Strip.

A couple blocks on the Strip brought us to Doheny, were we took a little side trip to see the Garagemajal. Indeed, it was big. I had a hard time fitting it all into one picture.

Next, we rode some more on Sunset and crossed into Beverly Hills. Our first sightseeing stop was at 722 Elm, which was the Menendez murder house. Then we continued on a bit to see the Witch’s house on Walden. Then we came out on Santa Monica Blvd and rode through Century City into Westwood.

The main attraction there was the Pierce Brothers cemetery. We had been there last November to visit Marilyn Monroe’s grave, and today we were there to see Rodney Dangerfield. We also stopped to see a number of others, including:

• Heather O’Rourke
• Bob Crane
• Eric Douglas
• Walter Matthau
• Jack Lemmon
• Carroll O’Connor
• Billy Wilder
• Dorothy Stratten

Pictures are in my Graves Gallery.

When I first came to California in 1978, I spent the spring racing my bike with the Claremont Colleges cycling team. Eric Douglas was a student at Pitzer College at the time, and I remember that everyone there regarded him as being somewhat strange. I thought that this was kind of novel, as I was usually the one the other kids thought strange, so it was odd for it to be someone else.

Dorothy Stratten was the 1980 Playmate of the Year, and I remember her just because she was the first Playmate I ever saw who was younger that I was. At the time I felt that that was something of a milestone. Of course, now I’m old enough to be the typical Playmate’s father, which I guess is also a sort of milestone. But let’s not dwell on that…

Leaving the cemetery, we rode through Holmby Hills to the park so we could get some water. While we were there, Jon bought a burrito from a catering truck. Then we headed up the hill.

The main climb was through Benedict Canyon, which is generally a pretty nice street for riding. This brought us up onto Mulholland Drive at the top of the ridge. Then we rode Mulholland all the way down to the 101 freeway in Cahuenga Pass. This was a small part of the ride that wasn’t so pleasant. Riding 20 feet away from a freeway is not very nice. But it was only for a short distance. Then we headed down the hill into Burbank and Forest Lawn.

At the entrance to Forest Lawn, there was a huge funeral procession. The main road into the cemetery was completely filled, and the line of cars waiting to get in was backed up down the road for about a half-mile. And, since we are in California, about half of the cars had only one person in them.

The last part of the ride was across Glendale and Eagle Rock. I broke a spoke in Glendale, but it turned out to be on the left side, so I was able to replace it right there. Then we took Colorado across Eagle Rock, stopping at Trader Joe’s for some orange juice.

The homestretch was up the Colorado hill and back into Pasadena. It was a nice ride.

65 miles.
cycling

I recently got a new camera. It’s a Canon Powershot S2 IS. My last two cameras were Canons, too, and I was very happy with them.

This morning, I looked out the front window and saw a hawk on our driveway. Hawks don’t usually come this far down out of the mountains, so this was kind of a treat. It was standing there, tearing up a small piece of meat. So I grabbed the camera and went outside. I managed to get pretty close to it. Close enough that the 12x zoom got a good look at it.

Actual nature, right here in the wilds of Los Angeles.

Route map

Today we gave Lida St. a rest. For the first time in a month, we went somewhere else.

We started out across campus and down San Pasqual St to Sierra Madre Blvd. Then we went south, almost to Huntington Drive to get on Monterey Road. Then we rode west across San Marino and South Pasadena.

Just after crossing the Gold Line tracks, we turned north on Arroyo and rode back into Pasadena. We went left on La Loma and up the hill there, then north on San Rafael to Colorado. Then we went left and then right on Patrician Way to go up the hill behind Eagle Rock. We had just ridden down the hill there on the Sunday ride a couple weeks ago, but I’d never been up that way before. It was nice. On the way up, I took a couple of pictures, and I gave the camera to Vikki to take a picture, since I’m almost never in the pictures from my bike rides.

At the top, we went down the winding road down to Linda Vista. When we got to Lida St, we paused to wave at the hill. Then we went down into the arroyo and past the Rose Bowl. We rode up the other side on Washington and back across Pasadena by way of Mountain and finally down Wilson and back to the office.

19 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.
cycling

This evening we went down to meet my Chinese family for dinner. Uncle Hsin always knows where the best Chinese restaurants are, and it’s always a fun time to have dinner with them.

This time we went to New Capital Seafood in Rowland Heights. It’s the usual Chinese seafood restaurant, with big tanks by the door with fish, crabs, shrimp, lobsters and various other captured marine life awaiting their fate. I remember always being fascinated by the live fish when I was kid, and Lucinda is interested in looking at them, too. She doesn’t like actually eating them just yet, but she still finds them interesting.

One of the dishes we got was squid, which was the Sunday Cephalopod. It was fried with lots of garlic. It was tasty and all, and I made a lame attempt at assembling an entire squid on my plate for a photo opportunity.

My always favorite thing since I was a kid is when we get Peking Duck. Sadly, Lucinda has not developed a taste for this. But she likes the rice chips that it comes served on, so it’s not a total waste for her. We also had a lobster and a steamed fish, which she didn’t like either. I can’t remember how old I was before I developed a taste for fish. I think I was about 10, so there’s time. And she’s learning to use chopsticks now.

Overall, it was a fun time.

Today’s ride was “La Tuna Canyon East to West”. This is the ‘easy’ way through there, since the climb up is broken up in short stages, and we go down the four-mile hill into Sunland. (I actually prefer to do it the other direction, since I like going up the four-mile hill, but I’m just funny that way.)

It was a perfect day. We headed across Pasadena and past the Rose Bowl before riding up into La Cañada. Then it was down Hospital Hill into Montrose for the gradual climb up to La Tuna Canyon.

We stopped for a minute at the top of the canyon, and then headed down the hill. This was the first time I’ve gone down that hill and not been the last guy to the bottom. That was novel. I also used the top gear on my bike for the first time in the two years that I’ve had it.

At the bottom, we got on Glenoaks and rode back into Glendale to our snack stop at Paradise Bakery. As always, I had two chocolate eclairs. Not exactly the Breakfast of Champions, but the eclairs are very good there.

After the stop, we took a slightly different route back across Glendale to get to Verdugo Blvd. Then it was back up the hill to Montrose and the obligatory trip up Hospital Hill. At the top, I noticed that I was dripping and had made a little puddle on the ground, so I took a picture of it. And I had one of those ‘what the hell happened to my life’ moments. I used to see a hill like that and think, “Hey, here’s my chance to break away”, but now I just think, “I hope I can keep up with Newton.”

Coming down the hill, we crossed back into Pasadena. Then Newton and I rode out to Arcadia before I turned around and headed back across Sierra Madre to home.

52 miles.
cycling

Today we all went down to Orange County to Uncle Larry’s house. Cathy, Larry, and Larry’s wife Francesca all have birthdays within a week of each other, so we did a big birthday dinner for all three there.

They went to the 99 Ranch Market and got some enormous lobsters for the occasion. They were something like three or four pounds each.

Lucinda is the only kid in the family, so we brought along a friend so she would have someone to play with. They had fun in the jacuzzi, and after that they played on the stairs, sliding down on pillowcases. This was a novelty, since we don’t have stairs in our house. Later in the afternoon, Grandpa took them to the pool. They also got to play in the elaborate landscaping in Larry’s back yard.

The dinner was nice, and Cathy was very pleased with the Micro-Dermabrasion kit that she got. She is very much into beauty treatments. She is going to be 44 next week, so I guess it’s working.

At the end of the day, we headed back home up the freeway, into the sunset.

It was a nice day.

On my way home on Friday, I got a closer look at one of the giant flower pots I’d seen on Wednesday. Apparently they are made with a welded steel frame covered with plywood. So they are very sturdy. I don’t know if they found a buyer, but there was a moving van in front of the house. So maybe this is why they wanted to sell them. In any event, it was interesting to see them close-up. I still think they made wonderfully weird lawn decorations.

Route map and photo locations

Today’s lunchtime ride was the Lida Loop again. This makes something like four weeks in a row, but today we had directions to visit Charles Richter’s old house and his grave site. He is the Richter of the “Richter Scale”, which is familiar to anyone who lives in earthquake country.

We started out and rode through Old Town and down to the Rose Bowl. Then it was up Lida to the top of the hill. When we crossed into Glendale on Figueroa, we saw a deer. It was standing on the side of the road, but when it saw us coming it ran away.

Coming down the hill into La Cañada, we turned and headed back into Pasadena. Passing by JPL and the arroyo, we went up Casitas St. to Altadena Drive. Then we took a left on Lincoln to get to Villa Zanita, which is on the map as a street, but it was really just a dirt driveway that led back to several houses. We stopped and saw Richter’s old house. He and his wife moved there in the mid ’60s, after their old house was bought and bulldozed to make way for a freeway. The story I was told about this house was that when the realtor found it, Charles was out hiking in the mountains and could not be reached. But Lillian saw the house and decided that he would like it, at least in part because there was a counter that was just the right size for laying out paper seismograms. So they bought the house and he lived there for the rest of his life.

Leaving Villa Zanita, we headed down Lincoln to Ventura, and then left to Fair Oaks. There, we went into the Mountain View Cemetery. The directions I had gotten were not right, so Vikki ended up walking into the office to get a map. You know how it is. The woman always has to ask for directions. But they were very helpful. She got detailed instructions and a map, and we were able to find Richter’s grave very easily.

By this time, it was time to get back to the office. So we took the most direct way back, on Woodbury to Lake and then down Catalina and Wilson back to Caltech.

It was a fun ride.

And on the way home, I saw a house with some very large flowerpots in the front yard. The sign said that they were theatrical props and that they were trying to sell them. I don’t know if they will get any takers, but it was still a wonderfully weird sight.

19 miles at lunch, 27 for the day.

cycling