Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Vikki is back from traveling, so we went out at lunchtime for ‘the usual’, which means the Lida Loop.

It was just about a perfect day today. We did the usual route. Vikki told me about her experience of Ironman Canada, followed by a trip to Italy, followed by a trip to Palm Springs. It all sounded quite grueling, but she was in pretty good spirits. In particular, she seemed quite pleased with her Ironman experience, with a time of 12:24:17.

The last part of the ride was straight down the hill and back to the office. It was a very pleasant ride.

18 miles at lunch, 26 for the day.
cycling

Since I can’t ride on Sunday, and nobody felt like doing the sightseeing trip up the mountains to see the old Nike missile site at Barley Flats, I went on the regular Foothill Cycle Saturday ride today. This was a pleasant little ride to nowhere in particular, with some nice hills.

We started out at Michillinda Park in Arcadia and rode back up through Pasadena. I stopped for a photo at B&D Auto in Altadena. This makes a nice companion for S&M Liquor. Then we went past JPL to get to La Cañada. Passing Descanso Gardens, we turned and went down Hospital Hill in to Montrose. Then we went west a bit more and then south into Glendale.

The fun part of the ride was back up and over the big hill on Chevy Chase. This is a nice hill, either up or down. Then we went back down into La Cañada and back home into Pasadena.

At this point, everyone split off to go home. I had only 35 miles, so I continued east, back to Arcadia. I made a loop down 1st and back up 2nd and then came home by way of Grand View in Sierra Madre.

It was a nice little ride on a very pleasant day.

50 miles.
cycling

Last Monday, I saw a movie review in the L.A. Times. They usually don’t have movie reviews on a Monday. But this was “Idiocracy“, the new movie by Mike Judge. Geeks everywhere know him for “Office Space“. The review was pretty good, and they were kind of puzzled by the fact that the studio had basically dumped the movie into limited release with no advance screenings and no publicity. Like they wanted it to fail. And apparently, they are not the only ones who got this impression.

We were intrigued. So yesterday, we went to see it. It was tremendously funny. The story line reminded me a lot of the classic science fiction story, “The Marching Morons“. And Luke Wilson was great as Joe Bowers, the hapless average man who ends up as the smartest guy on Earth in the moronic future. We enjoyed this movie a lot, even though a lot of it seemed uncomfortably close to reality.

It’s Back-to-School time again. Last night we all went to the Back-to-School picnic at Lucinda’s school. Once again, it was catered by the In-N-Out Burger mobile unit. In-N-Out is a Southern California institution, so having them here seems appropriate in a twisted sort of way.

So now it’s morning of the first day of Second Grade. Lucinda got the teacher she was hoping for. And her best friend is in the same class. She’s a little nervous, but we assured her that everyone feels that way. We just dropped her off in her new classroom. Still, it seems like just yesterday that she went off to school for the first time.

I went for the lunchtime bike ride again today. Vikki is out of town on a trip, so it was just me. I did the Lida Loop yet again. I got a new pair of wheels for my bike last night, since the old rims were pretty worn. So I wanted to try them out.

On the way in to the office in the morning, I saw a tree crew working down the street. Apparently, a very big oak tree branch fell on somebody’s garage last night. Have I mentioned lately that the city services in Pasadena are great?

Lunchtime came, and it was very hot. I did the usual route past the Rose Bowl and up and over the hill into La Cañada. On the way down Chevy Chase, I hit 37mph, which was pretty good on the winding downhill. I’m not as fearless as I used to be, but I’m getting better.

On the road near JPL, I had one of those “what’s wrong with this picture” moments.

As always, the last part of the ride was across Pasadena on Mendocino and then the long downhill back to the office.

18 miles at lunch, 28 for the day.
cycling

Today’s bike ride was another of those ‘noodling around not going anywhere in particular’ rides that we do so much. It was fun. It also marked Tommy’s return to riding with the group after being off the bike for a couple of months after crashing in Turnbull Canyon.

We headed east into Arcadia, and then up into the foothills in Monrovia for a bit. Then east some more on flat land out to Duarte and the Santa Fe Dam bike path. We rode the path down past the dam and down the San Gabriel River to Lower Azusa Road.

Crossing the Rio Hondo, I saw a funny sign. Sadly, I wasn’t quick enough on the draw to get a picture. In giant letters it said, “PAINLESS DENTISTRY”, but when I got close, I could see that above that, in tiny letters, it said, “Our goal is”. Heh.

We took El Monte Ave and the giant bike lane back up into Arcadia. Then we rode Huntington Drive west to San Marino. That was where we saw the “Auto Grooming” place. Then we went north on El Molino back into Pasadena. Our snack stop was at the corner bakery on Lake Ave. I got a bagel. I asked for it to be warmed up, not toasted. Then we sat outside for what seemed like forever before they brought me the bagel, and it was toasted. Sheesh.

After the stop, the group fragmented. Everyone went their separate ways. I stopped by my office to water my plants, since I realized that I’d forgotten to ask someone to water them while I was gone. They were all pretty wilted.

The last part of the ride was to go through Old Town and past the Rose Bowl and then back across Altadena on Mendocino. That was where I saw the big sign announcing “Free Pot”. No, not that kind of pot. It was a basket full of ceramic pots. Some of them were quite nice, and I would have taken a couple if I’d had a way to carry them.

It was a very nice ride.

47 miles.
cycling

Friday was our last day at Lake Tahoe. We spent the day just doing nothing in particular, which was nice. Lucinda got to spend some more quality time with the cable TV, which she enjoyed. Cathy and I did some house maintenance. She oiled the wooden cabinet doors. I put up two new smoke detectors with 10-year lithium batteries. We also got a new pulley for one of the blinds. That was hard to find, but Mary’s Draperies had it.

After lunch, we rented bikes one more time. This time, Lucinda wanted to try riding the little trailer-bike that hooked on to my bike. This seemed like a good idea, but in practice it was horrible. The trailer is hooked on to the main bike with a universal joint, and the joint has some play in it. This made it very hard to maintain balance, and it made the ride very unpleasant. I usually take pictures during bike rides, but this instability made sure I could never take one hand off the bars to take a picture. So the only pictures I took are from when we stopped at Pope Beach.

Before dinner, we went to the pool one more time. Then we had dinner at Evans. We always go there on our last night, and as always, the food was excellent.

And thus ended our vacation. The pictures from the day are in our photo album.