Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Last March, when we did the Topiary Tour, we stopped to see the Glendora Bougainvillea. At the time it didn’t look like much, so we wanted to go back and see it in bloom. Since it’s now May, we figured this was the time to do it.

It was a bit chilly, but a nice day for riding. We headed out straight east to Glendora. And when we got there, the bougainvillea was blooming, but not in a really impressive way. It’s big, but it just didn’t have all that many flowers on it. We figured that maybe that had something to do with it being nearly 110 years old. Anyway, we took a few pictures. And there was one vine growing up through one of the bougainvilleas that had some unusual and pretty flowers on it.

Our snack stop was at Classic Coffee in Glendora. After that, we headed south and came home by way of Cypress St through Covina. That was where we saw some front-lawn topiary. They looked a bit like Scottish Terriers, but we weren’t quite sure. Then, a bit farther down the road, I saw a new hot-rod mailbox. That’s the first one I’ve found since last summer.

Coming back through Santa Fe Dam, we were happy to see that the bike path had been repaved. And the cacti were flowering, too.

It was a nice ride.

42 miles.
cycling

Another person whose name you’ve never heard, but who changed the way we live today:

John Shepherd-Barron, credited as the inventor of the Automatic Teller Machine, has died.

“It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money… I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash.”

The first machine went online in 1967. And like the invention of the tortilla chip or ramen noodles, it changed the world.

Here’s his obituary.

Today’s bike club ride was a trip up to Tujunga to see if the house on Eby Canyon Road had been washed away last winter. We’d been up to see it last November, so we were curious to see if the deflection wall they were building worked. The house sits in a canyon right below the merging of two higher canyons, so when it rains, the wash there must turn into a raging torrent. It was a perfect day for riding.

We headed out across Eagle Rock, Glendale, and Burbank. I stopped to take a picture at Thirst Quencher Liquor. It’s not as funny as Hammered Liquor, but I thought it was amusing.

We rode through Shadow Hills. There were some steep bits, but it wasn’t too bad. Then we came out on Sunland Blvd and headed west to the mouth of Big Tujunga Canyon. The road into the neighborhood where the house is was under water. But it was only about 4-5 inches deep, so we just rode through it. Then up the hill on the other side and down into the canyon. And the house was still standing. The wash looked like it had been severely scoured by rushing water, and the culvert under the driveway was plugged. It also looked like the driveway had been buried by sand but they had had it plowed clear. So it looks like the wall worked.

Coming back across the wash, we rode through the water again, and then across Tujunga to get back to Montrose and our snack stop at Goldstein’s Bagels. It was a nice day to sit outside in the sun. Then we rode home by way of the trail over Devils Gate Dam and back into Pasadena.

It was a very nice ride.

47 miles.
cycling

This past week, I saw an item in the news about Julia Louis-Dreyfus getting a star on Hollywood Blvd. And how they misspelled her name. So of course I thought that this should be a quick sightseeing trip. It was cool and overcast. A “May Gray” sort of L.A. day.

We rode over to Hollywood and found the star. They’d said that they were going to have it remade, but none of us thought they’d get it done so fast. But it had been replaced by a corrected star. Oh well.

After the sightseeing stop, we headed up the hill by a new route. This went up some steep little streets and brought us out by Wolf’s Lair Castle. From there, we rode up to the Hollywood sign. Along the way, we had to stop for a photo opportunity at the house with the garage door painted with books. Then we headed down the hill, past Lake Hollywood, and up the other side to come down into Burbank.

We stopped for snacks at Priscilla’s in Toluca Lake. And then we headed home by way of the Linda Vista hill in Glendale. It was still kind of cold, so we actually appreciated the warmth of climbing a hill.

It was a nice ride.

40 miles.
cycling

Well, it was really the day before, but that’s what we had to work with. So I made a nice dinner for Kathleen, complete with a Lemon Drop. New adventures in the kitchen. I’d never actually made anything like that before.

We had a nice time.

Today’s bike ride was a tour of Downey to visit several local sights. We’ve done this ride before, but it’s been over two years, so it was time again.

The first stop was the oldest operating McDonalds, where they had a small topiary hedge in the shape of the old-style McDonald’s logo. Then we moved on to see the two apartment buildings that Karen and Richard Carpenter bought with their earnings from their first two hit songs. Then we went to see their family home, which had been in danger of being demolished a couple years ago, but it was still there. And the final stop was at Dennis the Menace park, which, strangely, was not open at 10:00 on a Sunday morning. So nobody was in there, aside from a bunch of homeless people.

The highlight of our morning easily had to be the guy walking his pet raccoon. A raccoon on a leash is something we’ve never seen before, and the raccoon was very cute. We also saw Herbie in a driveway in Downey.

It was a fun little ride.

40 miles.
cycling

Today, Kathleen and I took the Esotouric Tours “Pasadena Confidential” true crime tour. This is a bus tour around Pasadena and South Pasadena to visit sites of all sorts of horrible happenings. And it was hosted in part by Crimebo, the Crime Clown, who made balloon animals and told stories of death and mayhem.

It seems that back in the ’50s, there were a lot of married men who were secretly gay, and who ended up murdered by tricks they’d brought home. There were also a fair number of people who just went off their nut and killed their families. And I’d always wondered where Sirhan Sirhan grew up.

This tour is not for everyone, but if you like the Dearly Departed Tour and the Museum of Death, you’d probably like this as well.

Here’s my finish-line picture from Saturday. And actually, I don’t think I look all that bad. Sure, I was in a lot of pain at the time, but I’ve seen much worse.

I talked with Erik, and we’re starting our planning for September and the U.S. Bank tower. You can see it behind me in the picture. Last year, I did it in 15:07, and we’ve set a goal for this year to go under 14 minutes.

Today was the last Sunday of the month, and time for our monthly ‘longer ride’. This is to allow us a chance to do some sightseeing that’s beyond our usual 40-45 mile range. And today’s ride was a trip out to the Pierce Brothers cemetery in Westwood to pay respects to three American sex symbols:

• Marilyn Monroe
• Bettie Page
• Farrah Fawcett

Between the three of them, they covered the decades from the ’50s all the way through the ’80s.

It was a perfect spring day for riding. We headed out across Eagle Rock and then down, over the L.A. River, and into Hollywood. That’s where we saw Tinkerbell and some super-hero that I don’t recognize. Riding down Hollywood Boulevard is always an amusing and surreal experience.

Continuing on, we took in a small part of the Sunset Strip, and then crossed into Beverly Hills. We saw the Menendez murder house and the Witch’s House. The Witch’s House was recently renovated and has a nice shark mailbox out front now.

Leaving Beverly Hills, we passed Century City, where Silvio had another of his fancy carbon-fiber spokes break. This happened last month, too. And again, the wheel went so far out of true that it was hitting the frame, rendering the bike unrideable. So he had to call home for help while we continued on our way.

When we got to Westwood, we spent some time browsing around the cemetery. Marilyn’s crypt is easiest to find, since it’s well-marked and always has fresh flowers. Bettie Page is buried in the grass nearby, and she also had some fresh flowers. Farrah is on the other side in the small section with vertical headstones. It’s almost all very-famous people buried in that section.

We looked around a bit more to see who else we could find. We liked the stone for Jeff Morris, although I had to look him up to remember who he was. I also made a point of showing Carla the spot where Frank Zappa is buried, since he has no marker.

Leaving the cemetery, we stopped briefly at the little park in Holmby Hills before heading up Benedict Canyon. We regrouped at the top before going down the other side on Coldwater Canyon into the Valley. Our snack stop was at the little gelato place in Studio City where we’d stopped the day we went to see Michael Jackson’s house.

From there, we headed straight home across Toluca Lake and Glendale. It was a very nice ride.

60 miles.
cycling

So today was the big event. The 63-story stair climb up the Aon tower in downtown Los Angeles. After all the practice runs and all the mental preparation, it was showtime.

Since I was scheduled to start in the first group, I had to be there by 8:00, so I got up early and took the Metro Gold Line downtown. I got out of the Red Line subway station about 10 minutes before 8:00. Kathleen had ridden the subway in from the Valley, and she was already there. It’s always good to have a personal cheering section at these kinds of things.

I got registered and got my number: 404-Not Found. Well, I got a chuckle from it anyway. We saw Susan from the Stratosphere stair climb and U.S. Bank stair climbs there. There were several people there who we recognized from Las Vegas. It’s apparently a fairly tight-knit group that does this weird little sport.

When 9:00 came they had us line up to start. I went pretty far back in the line. I knew that the front guys were going to go very fast, and I didn’t want anyone passing me. I haven’t been passed on the stairs yet at one of these things, and I didn’t want to start today. When it was my turn to go, I ran in the door and started climbing.

I was quite a bit more serious about it this time, compared to last year. I didn’t carry my camera along to get a pain-picture on the way up. All I had was my stopwatch and metronome. And in the heat of battle I forgot to start the stopwatch at the start. D’oh! But my end-of-the-line strategy worked, and I passed about six or eight other guys on the way up. Kathleen had taken the camera and gone up to the 60th floor. They had the door open there to watch us go by. She said I looked like I was in some pain at that point, but you can’t tell from the picture because of the blur. And when I saw sunlight on the last landing, I managed to find a wee bit more for a final sprint up the last flight. When I got to the top, two guys took my arms and sat me down in a chair. I guess I must have looked like hell at that point, but I don’t know. At least they didn’t feel the need to give me oxygen like some people. I stayed on the roof for a little while to look at the view. While I was there, Randy from Las Vegas took my souvenir photo with his iPhone. Then we went down the stairs to the 60th floor, where there was a little party going on.

I had some oranges and water, and my breathing returned to normal. I was talking with a guy from Sacramento who had seen my web site and bike riding stories. So we traded some bike stories and compared our experiences climbing the stairs. Then Erik showed up. He’d gotten there a little late so he didn’t get to start with our group. We all hung around on the 60th floor for a while before taking the elevator down.

At the bottom, they’d already started posting results, and I was very pleased at my time of 11:42. My goal had been to be under 12 minutes, so this was quite good. And in fact, doing the math shows that I was going as fast as my last practice run. The practice runs were only 56 stories, so the fact that I was able to maintain that pace for the extra flights was a Good Thing. Erik turned in a time of 11:45, which means that all our practice runs to learn the pace worked. And the fact that I beat him by 3 seconds was a nice bonus. And in the end, I was 3rd in my age group, and 24th overall. I was 24th last year, but there were a lot more people doing it this time, so overall, I’m pleased.

A little bit of math gives my power output to be 273 watts, or 0.37 horsepower.

Kathleen and I hung around and schmoozed some at the little street fair they had at the bottom. We got some bagels, and I got a little massage. Then we headed back to the subway to go home.

It was a most excellent little adventure. Now we’re looking ahead to the YMCA stair climb up the U.S. Bank tower in September. Onward and upward.

Update 4/25/2010: They have the final results posted here. I was 22nd overall out of 493 runners, and 3rd out of 20 in the men’s 50-59 class. It was a good outing.