Stan’s Obligatory Blog

I went downtown for stair practice at the Aon building tonight. As always, I was dreading it the whole way there on the train. But when I got there, I just decided to start up the stairs and see what happened. And I did another personal best for the practice climb from 4 to 60. On the way up, I was mostly focusing on doing the footwork to even out the load on each leg, while maintaining the most efficient way to climb the stairs. But when I got to 56, I looked at my watch and saw 9:25, so I knew I had a chance to beat my previous best time of 9:56. So I somehow managed to pull out some extra energy to make a run up the last few flights before coming out at 60 and doing the traditional face-plant on the concrete floor. But it was worth it.

After a couple minutes rest, I went back down and started up again. This time, I walked down to ground level and then walked back up. I’d brought some paper and a pen, and I made notes all the way up. I noted the number of steps on each flight, the direction of the turn at the end of the flight, whether it was a 90-degree or 180-degree turn, and the length of the few flat sections. So now I have the information to make a complete map of the stairs from the ground floor up to the door to the roof. Presumably, this will even allow me to calculate the total number of steps I’ll have to take to get to the top. What can I say? I’m a nerd. I like to analyze the world in this way.

Tonight, Kathleen and I went to Westwood to see “Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins“. This is a one-woman show, with Kathleen Turner playing the part of the late Molly Ivins, talking about her life and experiences. I was familiar with Molly Ivins from my time in Texas. There are, in fact, liberals in Texas. They’re not plentiful, but they do exist. And Molly Ivins gave voice to them. She was very witty, and was something of a national treasure to the liberals, while the others still respected her, since she was a Texan, and you don’t talk ill about your family. So overall, she was an oddity, but an oddity who is sorely missed now that she’s gone. And Kathleen Turner did a very good job bringing her back to life on stage. This was a great show.

This is a rant. California license 4SHZ840, if you ever put your license plate into Google, this is why I was yelling at you.

First off, let’s have a look at a bit of the California Vehicle Code:

Circular Red or Red Arrow

21453. (a) A driver facing a steady circular red signal alone shall stop at a marked limit line, but if none, before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection or, if none, then before entering the intersection, and shall remain stopped until an indication to proceed is shown, except as provided in subdivision (b).

(b) Except when a sign is in place prohibiting a turn, a driver, after stopping as required by subdivision (a), facing a steady circular red signal, may turn right, or turn left from a one-way street onto a one-way street. A driver making that turn shall yield the right-of-way to pedestrians lawfully within an adjacent crosswalk and to any vehicle that has approached or is approaching so closely as to constitute an immediate hazard to the driver, and shall continue to yield the right-of-way to that vehicle until the driver can proceed with reasonable safety.

(c) A driver facing a steady red arrow signal shall not enter the intersection to make the movement indicated by the arrow and, unless entering the intersection to make a movement permitted by another signal, shall stop at a clearly marked limit line, but if none, before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection, or if none, then before entering the intersection, and shall remain stopped until an indication permitting movement is shown.

(d) Unless otherwise directed by a pedestrian control signal as provided in Section 21456, a pedestrian facing a steady circular red or red arrow signal shall not enter the roadway.
Amended Sec. 1, Ch. 14, Stats. 2001. Effective January 1, 2002.

So I was out riding on Saturday morning. Coming home, crossing Lake Avenue on Mendocino Street. I had the green light, and I was coming through the intersection. And suddenly, there was a silver-gray Lexus coming across the intersection, right in front of me. If I was in a car, I’d have honked the horn at her. Being that I was on my bike, and had no horn, I yelled at her. She had her window open, so she heard me and stopped, looking a bit surprised. This sort of thing happens from time to time, and it’s generally not a big deal. She made a mistake on the road. I think it was most likely an honest mistake, and that she meant no harm. It happens to everyone. Nothing bad happened, so it’s all right.

So I kept going. Then she pulls up next to me and starts yelling at me from the moving car:

“I stopped at that light before I turned! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

People make mistakes. It’s just part of being human. We all do it from time to time. In this case, the mistake she made was a pretty minor one. No harm was done, so that should have been the end of it. A truly proper and gracious response on her part would have been to say something like, “Oops. I didn’t see you. Sorry about that.” This is very rare. In fact, in nearly 40 years of riding, I can count the number of times I’ve heard this from a motorist on the fingers of one hand. And still have several fingers left to spare. But that’s all right. It’s all part of the gig when you ride a bike. Still, for her to come after me and start yelling at me about how she didn’t do anything wrong and that, by implication, this is all somehow my fault, well, this crossed the line. This is no longer an honest mistake. This is acting like an asshole.

Now, I’m of the opinion that there are two kinds of people in the world:

1. People who make mistakes, but are willing to own up to them;
2. Assholes.

So I want to convey this to her, but I can’t give the fully-detailed and nuanced response above, since I’ve got to fit it in eight words or less as she’s driving away from me. So the abbreviated version came out like this:

“Through traffic has the right of way, ASSHOLE!”

By this time, she’s passed me, but she slows down, and I can hear her yelling at me more from inside the car. I can’t make it out. But by this time, I’m feeling more than a little threatened. After all, in any physical altercation between our respective vehicles, I’m the one who stands to end up dead.

So she pulls over a little bit ahead of me and stops. I see her starting to get out of the car, still yelling at me. I just ride past, and I say something to the effect that I don’t want to talk to her any more. I also made a point of showing her that I’d taken pictures of her and her car. Then I turned down the first side street. I put on some speed down the hill, and went down lots of little streets, just to lower the chances that I’d encounter her again.

There’s no good way to wrap this up. Yes, I think I lost my cool, and that didn’t help the situation. It’s just that people who won’t admit they made a mistake is a major peeve of mine. So driver, if you ever read this, this is how you managed to take a not-especially-bad situation, and turn it into something truly horrible and disturbing. And I sincerely hope to never, ever see you again on the road.

This Sunday’s bike club ride was the route out to Glendora to see the Glendora Bougainvillea. The last time we went to see it, it wasn’t blooming that much. I’d read that winter is the time it blooms the most, so I thought we’d go see it again to see how it was doing.

It was a nice day for riding, and the ride out there was pleasant. The bougainvillea had some flowers on it. More than last time, but not as much as others we’ve seen. That may be because this particular plant is over a 100 years old.

In any case, it was a nice ride.

42 miles.

This is great!

On Thursday evening’s stair practice, I did yet another personal best. I climbed the practice course from 4 up to 60 in 9:56. This is four seconds faster than my previous best, and about 30 seconds faster than the practice times I was turning in last year

I’m getting better at the stepping patterns I worked out to even out the load on each leg, and that seems to be helping. It’s also good from a mental standpoint, since it gives me something to focus on as a distraction from how much it hurts. So all around, it’s a Good Thing.