Stan’s Obligatory Blog

This evening we went down to South Pasadena for dinner at Shiro to see my old friend Gordon and his wife Bei. They are passing through Los Angeles on their way to Death Valley and Las Vegas. I’ve known Gordon for over half my life now. We worked together at my first job at McDonnell Douglas from 1982-84, and we’ve remained friends ever since, even as we’ve gone our widely separate ways.

I first met Gordon when I was on my plant trip to McDonnell Douglas in 1982. I’d been offered the job, and they flew me out from college in Texas to visit. We got along right from the start. The prospect of moving across the country by myself at 22 was kind of a scary thought, but I felt like I already had a friend there, and that made it better. And after I got there, we became good friends. Gordon even took this picture of me in the Douglas parking lot when we were on our way to our joint going-away party when we both left the company.

Now we live on opposite ends of the country. We’re quite a bit older, and we’re both more settled in our lives. But we’re still friends, and that’s really a special thing.

Today we went to see the second Body Worlds exhibit at the science museum. The big attraction here was the “Suicide by Fat: Obesity Revealed” exhibit. Lucinda and Daddy went to the museum and met Aunt Maggi there. We had a quick lunch at the McDonald’s in the museum, since there’s nothing like having a Big Mac and fries before seeing an exhibit on the horrors of obesity. I also made a point of eating at McDonald’s before going to see “Super Size Me”, so there is a pattern here.

The new exhibit was as big as the first one, but with different specimens. They even had a camel, which was kind of novel. The human specimens showed a range of different things, from the muscles used for skateboarding to various horrible diseases. It was all quite gruesome and also quite interesting.

Afterwards, we went outside and Lucinda played on the “Big Lever” exhibit outside. She wasn’t quite able to lift the truck by herself, but she did it with the help of another little girl.