Stan’s Obligatory Blog

I got a very insistent message on my answering machine yesterday. It sounded like it was from a collection agency. This has happened before, and they are always looking for somebody else with the same name as me. So I called them back. They said I have a Bank of America Visa, which I don’t. They said I was born in 1958, which I wasn’t. They said I live in Los Angeles, which I don’t.

Then the stupid part: After establishing that I’m not the guy they’re looking for, he asks me, “Do you know how I can contact him?” Like I keep a list of contact information about people who just happen to have the same name as me. Right.

Lucinda went to a new art class today. They had her do a drawing just to assess her art skills. And this is the result. We think she’s really quite good, although we’re perhaps a bit biased. In any event, here’s some more waves to Grandma and Grandpa and Grandpa.

Route map and photo locations

Today’s ride was one we haven’t done since last year. One of the roads on the route washed out in the rains last winter, so we’ve been avoiding it. But Gene recently heard that the road was closed to cars but passable by bike, so we went to do it today.

We started out going east to Arcadia and then south to Temple City. This was just to pad the ride out a bit, since it would have been very short if we just went and rode up the hill.

We made a loop back through San Marino and South Pasadena and then headed up into the San Rafael Hills. We rode past the burned-out mansion there. The mansion that burned is next door to the house that was used as “Bruce Wayne’s house” in the old “Batman” TV series. Original reports said that the Batman house had burned, but it later turned out to be the house next door.

Next, we headed down Linda Vista and passed the Rose Bowl. Then we turned up Inverness and started climbing. Right about here, we met up with Ben Bertiger, who was out riding with his parents. The decided to join us for the hill portion of the ride. Ben is the Southern California Junior 10-12 Track Omnium Champion. Track racers are not generally known for being good hill climbers, but he gave us all a run for our money. He may have been the first to the top, but I don’t know. He was well ahead of me.

On the way up the hill, we had to stop to portage the bikes past the fence where the road was closed. Then we stopped to admire the washed-out road. It was impressive. After that, there was one more fence to cross, and the the rest of the climb to the top.

At the top of the hill, we went down the other side and took Lida back down to the Rose Bowl. We passed the Bowl and then went into Old Town for a snack at Il Fornaio.

After the snack stop, we went past the Rose Bowl yet again, this time on Prospect St. Then we took Arroyo and Windsor Road up to Altadena Drive. From there it was a nice three-mile downhill back to the park.

46 miles
cycling

Today we rode the Amtrak Surfliner down to San Diego to visit Grandpa Schwarz.

The trip down was pretty uneventful. We rode the Metro Gold Line to Union Station and then got the Surfliner southbound. Lucinda played with her Game Boy and also did some games in Highlights. The train stopped a few times on the way down. At one of the stops I saw a campaign sign for an upcoming election. There are few things more forlorn-looking than a campaign sign for a Democrat in Orange County.

When we got to San Diego, Grandpa picked us up at the station and we went to lunch at the dining room at his place. The dining room where he lives is actually quite good. The place is run by Hyatt, so the dining room is equivalent to a hotel restaurant. We had a nice lunch, and then we went down to his apartment.

Lucinda played piano with Grandpa for quite a while. She played with the animal puppets he has. We also marveled at the miraculous flying grocery bag we saw out of his window. Our grocery bags are usually flightless, but this was was swooping up and down outside the tower for a long time.

When it was time to go home, we went to dinner before going to the train. Then we got on and rode the train home. It was a nice day. It was long, but it was nice.

Two weeks ago, we bought a new car. One of the little things it came with is a subscription to Sirius Satellite Radio. They have hundreds of channels for every taste. Cathy likes the Classic Disco channel.

When I was younger, I never understood the appeal of oldies radio. It seemed that they played stuff that was either so old it didn’t mean anything to me, or it reminded me of times I would rather have forgotten. Most ’70s music falls into this category for me.

And then I was playing with the satellite radio in the new car and I found 1st Wave, where it’s always 1985. They even have Richard Blade, Freddy Snakeskin, Dusty Street, and Swedish Egil, who were part of the KROQ crew back in the ’80s. It’s just like old times. I can put that on and just slump over the wheel, weeping for my lost youth…

I went to Caltech last night to hear a talk by Ken Deffeyes: “The Peak of World Oil Production: Thanksgiving Day, 2005″. He talked about the late M. King Hubbert and his analysis of oil production curves and such. It sounds dry, but he was a very engaging and entertaining speaker. And his main point is that the coming oil crisis is starting now.

He showed us a copy of a little article from two years ago about how Saudi Arabia has no more spare production capacity. He said, “This is the biggest story since the Industrial Revolution, so why is nobody paying any attention to it?” It used to be that Saudi Arabia was the regulator of the global oil economy. They held the price stable by opening or closing the taps on their wells. But now they have all the taps open all the way just to keep up with demand.

The last part of the talk was about what could be done about this. He thinks that from where we are now, the best thing we can hope for will be a global recession like the Great Depression. There will be oil rationing, although it’s not determined if it will be rationed by price, coupons, or by the inconvenience of having to wait in line for hours to buy it.

On the other hand, I kind of enjoyed riding my bike past long gas lines back in ‘74. And maybe I’ll even have some company when I’m riding my bike to work.

Reading her article in Salon today:

www.salon.com/ent/feature/2005/12/02/madonna/index.html

On the second page she says:

Is Madonna suffering Mick Jagger syndrome? Jagger, like Madonna, has tremendous managerial and business aptitude. It is he who single-handedly saved the Rolling Stones during Keith Richards’ reclusive period of heroin addiction in the 1970s. But the end result was that the once-Dionysian Jagger became trapped in the crisp, precise Apollonian realm and was no longer capable of producing lyrics that match Richards’ thunderous, blues-based inventions.

“Dionysian” and “Apollonian”. <swoon> I just love reading Camille Paglia. She just has so much fun with the language.

Cathy and Lucinda went and picked out a tree today. I put it up after dinner. Then we all decorated it. Christmas is an odd holiday for us. We enjoy it a lot, even though we’re not the least bit religious. It’s just a fun time to eat and get and give presents. And after it’s over, the days start getting longer again.

This is our 20th Christmas together, which is also just a bit odd. Both Cathy and I are shocked to realize that we’re old enough to to say, “this is our 20th Christmas”.

So I had to go up into the attic to get down all our decorations. Every year I’m astounded at how many boxes of stuff we have. There were at least ten of them, so I had to schlep up and down the ladder many times, even with Lucinda helping.

We have an odd collection of stuff to put on our tree. But this year we got a new decoration. It’s the dog-turd ornament. We found it at a Wiskers, which is a little pet gift shop in Long Beach. They had a holiday display there with a tree decorated with these little snow-crusted turds. So we had to have one. I also got the “Monthly Doos” dog poop calendar (”amazingly gross” raves Stupid.com) for my office.

So it’s just a big dog-shit holiday festival here. And our tree is officially ready for the holidays.

Today’s ride was just over to Glendale to see the Turkey Trot cyclocross race. I had suggested this to Gene a few weeks ago because I thought I might see Jonathan Livesay there. I used to race on the east coast back in the late ’70s, and Jonathan was one of the good racers in New York at the time. We didn’t really know each other then, but we were in lots of breakaways together at the Tuesday and Thursday evening races at Westbury on Long Island. Also, my mom was friends with his girlfriend’s mom, and our two moms would bring their bikes out to the races and just ride around the campus there and talk about mom stuff. So I thought it was quite remarkable that Jonathan is not only living near here now, but is still racing and doing quite well at it.

We started out heading west across Pasadena. Then we turned and went up through La Cañada, passing Descanso Gardens. Then we went down Hospital Hill and into Montrose. We rode around through there, up and down the hills a bit before coming down a very steep hill and arriving at Verdugo Park on Cañada Blvd.

When we got there, the Masters 50+ race was almost over. Jonathan was there, and he won the race with a commanding lead of at least a minute over the next rider. It was impressive. When he went by, I immediately recognized his ‘race face’. I’d seen it many times before, and even though it’s been 25 years, he still had the same look of concentration.

After the race I went and found him. He didn’t remember me, which wasn’t all that surprising, since it’s been so long and I only raced for about five years. Still, we talked about the old days there and some of the ‘cast of characters’ who used to race around New York in those days. It was fun.

Continuing on from the park, we rode a bit through Glendale to a bakery in Kenneth Village. We had pastries and such. I had a chocolate eclair, which was quite good.

After the snack stop, we continued on a bit and then got on Glenoaks Blvd to come back. We took Glenoaks all the way to Chevy Chase, climbing up and over a small, but steep hill at the end. Then we had the long climb up Chevy Chase.

The route was to go up Chevy Chase to Figueroa, but Gene decided to take a ’shortcut’ up Linda Vista. I put quotes around ’shortcut’, since it’s not like it was substantially easier. We still had to climb the same hill. At the top, we regrouped and then headed down Lida towards the Rose Bowl. When we got to the bottom, someone said, “Hey, what happened to Scott?” So Gene and I headed back up the hill to look for him.

At the top of the hill, there was still no sign of Scott. So I volunteered to go down the other side to look for him. I rode all the way back down to the last place we’d seen him. But he had vanished. So I figured he must have taken a different way back. So I started for home, which involved riding back up and over the hill that I’d ridden over twice already.

When I got back down on the Pasadena side, a truck pulled up next to me. It was Scott. He said that he’d taken a wrong turn, so he just rode back to the park where we started. So the mystery was solved, and I’d gotten to ride up two extra hills in the deal. Yay.

From the bottom of the hill, I rode around the south end of the Rose Bowl and then back across Pasadena to home.

47 miles.
cycling

I was looking out the window today when I saw the neighbor’s cat batting at the bush in front of our window. The cat had a mouse treed in the bush. After a while, it knocked the mouse out of the bush and proceeded to sit and play with it on the lawn. I went out to snap a picture. The mouse was just dazed and panting on the grass. It was bleeding a little bit. I took my pictures and went back inside. The cat came back and took the mouse off to parts unknown.

Later on, I went in the back yard and noticed a rather colorful dog turd on the grass. Our dog Buddy had eaten some crayons a couple of nights ago. And the evidence was there for all to see. So I went back and got the camera again. So here it is, in full macro-focus glory: orange and blue crayon-speckled dog turds. Yum.