Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Tomorrow is our office holiday party, and I’m the organizer. So I decided to try out a new recipe. It’s Cochinita Pibil. I’ve had this at Border Grill and it’s good. So I decided to try it myself. I found the annatto seeds and I ground them up to make the achiote paste. So here is the pork marinating, just waiting to be cooked tomorrow. When I write programs I usually start with a single comment at the top that says something like “I hope this works”, so here it is:

/* I hope this works */

This just in…

Mandonna played here in L.A. last weekend. They are an all-male Madonna tribute band. We just read the review in the L.A. Weekly, and we’ve decided that this is a must-see. So we got on their mailing list to find out when they are coming back. Be sure to check out their web site. It’s quite slick, and they have some songs you can download. Their version of “Material Girl” is priceless.

We went to see Julia Sweeney’s monologue show, “Letting Go of God” this weekend. It was really good. Very entertaining. She tells the story of her Catholic upbringing and her later disillusionment with it. This led into her spiritual quest which involved Deepak Chopra, trips to Tibet, Bhutan and the Galapagos Islands. And how all this ultimately led to her abandoning her belief in God. Along the way, she tells a lot of funny stories and takes pokes at most of the major and minor religions. It was a hoot.

She said that the show has been extended through at least the end of January. If you’re in the L.A. area, it’s definitely worth seeing.

Today’s ride was Gene’s “Just One Hill” ride. And there was just one hill. But it was big and steep. It wasn’t nine miles uphill like last week, but it was still a good climb. It was another picture-postcard day, so when we got to the top, we were able to see all the way out to the ocean. On the way down, I had to stop to do a brake adjustment on my bike. While I was doing that, Newton’s front tire just decided to go flat. So we had a little break sitting there on the side of the hill.

When we got to the bottom, we stopped at the Starbuck’s in La Cañada. I had a bagel and orange juice. Easy to digest for glycogen and all that. Then we headed back into Pasadena. We took the side trip up to Loma Alta and came back through the foothills of Altadena. The view from the top of Lake Avenue was impressive. The ride was kind of short by our standards, so we just sort of noodled around Pasadena and Sierra Madre to pad the ride out a bit.

40 miles.

Here are the Christmas ornaments made out of food that Lucinda’s class made today. Cathy is the volunteer art docent for the class, so she comes up with these projects for them to do.

So we went to Lucinda’s Holiday Program today. The kids actually did a pretty good show. Here is a picture of the kindergarten group. Other pictures from the day are in Lucinda’s photo album.

Today we went to Lucinda’s school for their Holiday program. Parking near the school is always a problem. But I am the Master of Parallel Parking. I got the car into this space, and it wasn’t too bad. I had three fingers clearance at the back and five at the front. So the space was actually a good six inches longer than the car. Not a record by any means. Still, it was amusing, since Cathy didn’t think it was going to fit.

Also, when we got there, I was kind of amazed to see the towers of downtown L.A. off in the distance. They’re about 15 miles away, but usually we can’t see them through the smog.

One of the fun things about Southern California is that citrus fruit grows on trees in our back yard. So we get to see all the weird fruits that would never make it to the grocery store. Lucinda was very excited when she found this tiny little tangerine on our tree. So she had to try it.

One more sign of the impending holidays here in Pasadena. The bleachers are going up all along Colorado Blvd. in preparation for the 24 hours or so of madness that is the Rose Parade. I really can’t understand the people who camp out overnight to see it, and it makes our neighborhood a zoo for three days afterwards. But it’s part of our local kitsch and culture. So it’s all right, and it’s even kind of funny.

On the day of the parade, they park all the trailers in our neighborhood to collect the horses. This means that every little girl is out running around with a bag of carrots to feed them. It’s really quite cute.

Today was one of those days when they take postcard pictures. It was exceptionally clear, and pleasantly warm. And today’s club ride was up Glendora Mountain Road. This is a nice 9-mile climb up the front range of the San Gabriels. We started out full of energy and smiling. And some of us were even still smiling when we got to the top…

There was a fire there two years ago, and there are still a lot of burned trees on the side of the mountain. But we’ve had some rain recently, so the hillsides were all green. And I had to stop and take a picture when I saw the towers of downtown L.A. in the distance. They are about 25 miles away from where I’m standing, and it’s pretty rare for the air to be clear enough to see that far.

When we got to the top, I had to take a picture looking back down to where we started. If you look carefully, you can see the road winding up the ridge in the photo. We also were marveling that not only could we see Catalina Island, but we could even see San Clemente Island, which is just to the left of Catalina, and about 100 miles away.

Then we went down into the East Fork of San Gabriel Canyon. It was a very warm day, but there were some very cold air pockets in shady spots on the way down. It was kind of startling to ride through them. We stopped for a snack at Camp Williams before continuing down the canyon. Right after we left Camp Williams, Gene got a flat. So we got to spend a bit more time admiring the scenery. Finally, we got down the bridge at the junction of Highway 39. Then we went down 39 the rest of the way back to Azusa. From there it was the standard route home through Duarte, Monrovia, Arcadia and Sierra Madre.

It was a fun ride. 52 miles.