Stan’s Obligatory Blog

On Christmas morning, I went for a bike ride. I didn’t have to be anywhere until afternoon, and it was a nice day. I rode over to Arcadia to meet up with the Foothill Cycle group. The ride was one of those rambling ‘rides to nowhere’. Just a loop around Pasadena to the snack stop in Alhambra. When we got there, I decided to skip the stop, since I had to get back to get ready to go out. So I rode directly home from Alhambra, pausing only briefly to admire the view of Mt Baldy covered with snow in the distance over Alhambra Road.

It was a nice ride.

33 miles.
cycling

It’s Christmas Eve, and Lucinda is at my house tonight. So she got to open the presents I got for her. They were all platypus-themed. We had a Chinese dinner, since that was what I had supplies at home to make. And we also spent some time playing Rock Band on the Wii.

All in all, it was a very fun ‘bachelor-father spending time with his kid’ kind of evening.

I had occasion this evening to go to the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank. This is the original one, built in 1949, and it’s something of a SoCal landmark. And it has great neon signs. So I got some pictures while waiting for my date to arrive. Fortunately, there were a lot of newpaper boxes on the sidewalk, and they made great platforms to balance the camera for steady night shots. So I got pictures of the Bob’s signs, and also the neon hot dog across the street at Papoo’s Hot Dog Show.

Today’s bike ride was the “San Dimas South” route, which is a fairly flat route that goes out to Bonelli Park, but not through the park and over the hills there. It was chilly, but basically a nice day for riding.

The route out was pretty direct. We passed by the house that had had a big tree decorated with big Christmas ornaments last year. This time, they didn’t do it, although they still had the rest of the house decorated.

The stop was at Panera Bread in West Covina. By then, it had warmed up enough that it was pleasant sitting outside.

On the way back, we saw a house in Baldwin Park with some topiary animals in the yard. That will have to be added to the Topiary Tour route for next time.

It was a very nice ride.

45 miles.
cycling

This afternoon, I took Lucinda and her friend Kymber to Hollywood to visit the Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum. We’d been there once before, and she’s been talking about wanting to go back again. It’s a random collection of weird stuff, which is perfect in Hollywood.

We took in the museum and it’s oddities. The girls kind of skipped over the more morbid ones, but overall, they found it amusing. And afterward, we took a walk down Hollywood Blvd, since Lucinda had never seen the footprints in front of the Chinese Theater. Along the way, they got hustled for a picture with one of the characters in front of Hollywood and Highland. And I have no idea who she was supposed to be.

They walked around and saw footprints of a lot of stars they recognized, and lots more they’d never heard of. They were hoping to find Michael Jackson there, but apparently he’s not.

When we left Hollywood Blvd, it was not dark yet, so I took them up to see the Hollywood sign close-up. I’ve taken the bicycle club up there several times, so I know how to get as close as you legally can to it. And I took their picture there.

It was a fun little afternoon.

Dan O’Bannon has died. He wrote the script for the original “Alien”. The money quote in his obituary:

O’Bannon said in a 2003 interview that he modeled the alien’s behavior after the life cycle of parasitic microorganisms.

“One thing I realized hadn’t been exploited in science fiction movies were the physical aspects,” he told the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. “The real world offered many examples which were extremely loathsome, and I thought, if it’s good enough for Mother Nature, maybe it will work on an audience.

“One review said that watching this movie was like turning over a rock and finding something disgusting. That was a pretty good description of what I was going after.”

And he succeeded. The ‘alien chestburster’ has become very familiar in our culture.

So once again, we should salute someone who made a major contribution to modern popular culture.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-dan-obannon19-2009dec19,0,4358785.story

Today, I had to go to downtown Los Angeles to visit the Federal Building. I rode the Gold Line there, since I hate driving downtown. And when we got to Union Station, I saw a New Jersey Transit commuter train parked on one of the tracks there. I grew up in New Jersey, and I used to ride the NJT trains to go to New York. Trains don’t usually take wrong turns or get blown off course like migratory birds, so seeing it here was strange. Just like the time I saw an NJT bus parked near my house. Offhand, I’d guess maybe it’s a prop for a movie, since I don’t think they have a regular L.A. to Hoboken route going.

This weekend’s schedule worked out that I was going to have both Saturday and Sunday mornings available to go bike riding. But I woke up this morning to the sound of heavy rain outside. Crap.

Today’s bike ride was down to Whittier and the up and over Turnbull Canyon. We haven’t done this route on a Sunday since last June, when we went to see the Octomom Art Project. It was chilly and overcast, and not promising to warm up. So we were all pretty bundled up.

Before we left, I noticed that Silvio’s fork had “Damocles” on it. That struck me as odd. After all, if I were riding fast down a mountain, I’m not sure I’d want my bike to have the Fork of Damocles on it. Somehow, it’s just not the mental image I’d want my bike frame to evoke.

We rode down to the Rio Hondo bike path and took that down to it end to get to the San Gabriel River bike path. That brought us down to Pico Rivera and Beverly Blvd. We rode across Whittier and started up Turnbull Canyon. As I expected, Scott pretty much left us in the dust going up the hill. But that’s all right.

At the top, we regrouped before heading down the other side. Then we made a big look through La Puente to get back. Our snack stop was at Merengue in Monrovia. Normally, we sit out on the patio, but it was too cold for that. While we were eating, Keira mentioned that she didn’t want to go back outside because of the cold. I got a small newspaper and gave it to her to make a Hoover Blanket. And she said it worked.

From Merengue, we took the direct route home. When we got back to the park, I had 46 miles and nowhere in particular I had to be. So I noodled around the neighborhood a bit just to get to 50. Because it just looks nice on the bike computer display.

50 miles.
cycling

Someone posted this link the other day on a mailing list I subscribe to:

All men watch porn, scientists find

Researchers were conducting a study comparing the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users.

But their project stumbled at the first hurdle when they failed to find a single man who had not been seen it.