Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today was the media event for the start of the Southern California Shakeout. This is an exercise to see if we can collectively deal with a M7.8 earthquake on the southern San Andreas Fault. This is the ‘Big One‘ that they have been telling us about for some years now.

They had an animation showing the waves traveling across southern California in real time, showing just how long the earthquake would last. It was impressive. Most earthquakes we’ve dealt with recently are over in seconds. The Big One will last something like three minutes.

Have I mentioned lately that I really like my job?

Since last week was a flat-ish ride, it was time for a hill today. And Turnbull Canyon seemed like just the thing.

We started out from Victory Park in Pasadena and headed south. We hadn’t gone more than a couple miles when Ben got a flat. Of course, my first thought was to take a picture for the Flat Tire Gallery.

While Ben was fixing his flat, Philippe showed up. He had decided to ride with us today, and was just running a few minutes late. So after the tire was fixed, we headed out again. Philippe is a strong rider, and I believe it was his presence that led to today’s ride being much faster than usual. Which was just fine.

When we got to Turnbull Canyon, Philippe and Ben took off up the hill. I didn’t want to try to race them, so I stayed with Susan and Jon. But when we got near the top, I saw that we were catching up to Ben. So I had to see if I could catch him before getting to the top. As it turned out, I was just able to catch up by the top, but he saw me coming and sprinted the last 50 meters (Gotta speak metric, since Ben’s from Belgium.) or so, just enough that I couldn’t quite beat him to the top. Still, it was a fun little exercise.

We came down the other side and then headed back home by way of La Puente and Baldwin Park. Our snack stop was at Planet Cookies in Monrovia. From there, we headed straight home, taking the relatively flat route through Arcadia. Our average for the ride was nearly 17mph, which is pretty fast for our group, especially since we had the climb up Turnbull Canyon today.

It was a fun ride.

46 miles.
cycling

Today’s bike club ride was to Claremont, and it was a perfect day for riding. I’d recently arranged so Susan could get a Caltech jersey, so we were twins today. At the start of the ride, I got Silvio to take a picture.

The route was very direct. We just went straight east, passing through Duarte, Azusa and Glendora before turning south a bit and then taking Bonita Ave out to Claremont. There really wasn’t much to it. But we still managed to miss a turn. Still, we found our way there just fine.

When we got to Claremont, we went to 42nd St Bagels. The rest of our group went down the street to Some Crust Bakery. But both are nice. I had a garlic bagel and some orange juice.

The ride back was pleasant. We went by the most direct route, which included the stretch of Gladstone St with the 1% downgrade. That’s always fun.

When we got home, our average was just about 16mph, which is not bad for this distance.

56 miles.
cycling

In today’s obituary pages, Alexander Courage has died at 88. The headline says it all:

Alexander ‘Sandy’ Courage, 88; composer wrote ‘Star Trek’ theme

Apparently, he had a prolific career writing music for movies and TV for over 50 years. But in the geek world, he’s going to always be known for “Star Trek”.

And the eight notes:

The eight-note brass fanfare that Courage wrote to herald the starship Enterprise became one of the most familiar musical signatures in TV history.

“I’d argue that it’s the most famous fanfare in the world,” Burlingame, who teaches film music history at USC, said Thursday.

“It’s been around 42 years — and it’s all around the world — and when you hear those eight notes you immediately think of the Enterprise,” he said.

Read the whole article here: www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-courage30-2008may30,0,1290138.story

Film and TV director Joseph Pevney has died at 96. Bein’ a geek, I immediately recognized his work on the original “Star Trek”. He directed several of my favorite episodes ever: “Amok Time“, “Arena” and “The City on the Edge of Forever“. And of course, he also directed “The Trouble with Tribbles“. So hoist a tribble and take a moment to remember yet another person who helped shape modern geek culture.

www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-pevney29-2008may29,0,2766431.story

This morning’s bike ride was the “Old Glendora” route. A straight ride out to Glendora, with a stop for a snack there. Then a straight ride back. It’s a relatively flat route, which was just the thing for today.

It was cool this morning when we gathered at Victory Park in Pasadena. We started out going south to Temple City, and then turned east on Longden, and we just headed east all the way to Glendora. When we got there, we saw a house with a big collection of weird stuff on the front lawn. I figured that was worth a picture.

In Old Town Glendora, we were going to go to the French bakery there, but when we got there, we saw that it had gotten a “C” grade from their last health department inspection. Since none of us were ever all that crazy about the food there, we decided to try something different. We went back down the block to Classic Coffee, which turned out to be quite good. The food and drinks were good, and the service was good, too. So I changed the route slip for the future. We also got a little chuckle out of the mirror ornament in the car parked next to our table.

The ride back was nice. Just straight west all the way back. We took Sierra Madre Ave across Glendora and Azusa, since it’s open again after being closed for reconstruction for the last couple of years. And we got back to the park by 11:00, which is pretty early for us. But the ride was a little shorter than we usually do, and we were going pretty fast. So it was a fun ride.

38 miles.
cycling

This evening, Susan and I went to see “Heavy Metal in Baghdad“, which is a documentary about Acrassicauda, which is the only known heavy metal band from Iraq. They started some years before the war, and the film included some video of them doing a concert in 2002. They said that in order to get permission for the concert, they had to agree to sing a song praising Saddam Hussein.

The band members said that at first they thought the war and the fall of Saddam would be good for them. But over time, they found that living and playing in a civil war zone was no good. When they did a show in post-Saddam Baghdad, it was in a hotel surrounded by concrete barriers and troops. And the show had to be over by 7:00, so everyone could make it home before curfew. Later, their practice room was blown up by a rocket, and all their instruments were destroyed. Finally, the film followed them as they escaped Iraq to Syria in hopes of finding peace there.

Overall, the film was kind of depressing, but also uplifting. It’s a triumph of the human spirit. Even under the worst circumstances, young men will find ways to rock out and bang their heads.

Today is Friday before Memorial Day, and so we had planned on having a cookout at the office. Who knew a freak storm would blow in and it would be raining? Usually, if it’s after March, this is just not something we have to worry about here in L.A. So nobody could have foreseen this. But the show must go on. We moved the actual serving area inside to the conference room. But the grill was still outside, so I just stood out there in the rain cooking our sausages. It was all right.

Sunday’s ride was the Mt Washington route. We’ve done this one before, and it’s always fun. It was hot today, so this seemed like a good choice.

Before we even left the park, there was a sudden, loud hissing noise, and Silvio’s front tire went flat. So he had to fix it before we could even start the ride. But this turned out to be a good thing. Jon was a couple minutes late to the start, so we were still there when he pulled up.

We started out heading up into La Cañada, and then down Hospital Hill, and down Verdugo all the way through Glendale. Then we took a detour to cross the L.A. River and go down Riverside Drive. There’s no real reason for this diversion, but it turns a 36-mile route into a 39-mile route.

The ride up Mt Washington is nice, especially since they repaved the road. So it’s a fun climb. Just look how Susan is smiling in the picture. Or perhaps that was because we were within sight of the top. When we got to the top, we stopped in the shade in front of the Self-Realization Fellowship gates. Then we headed down the other side.

At the bottom, we turned to head into Highland Park, with another short detour to Eldred Street, which is reputed to be the second-steepest street in Los Angeles. But we didn’t see any bighorn sheep there.

Our snack stop was at Kaldi’s in South Pasadena, which has a nice shady spot for the tables outside. And after that, we rode across San Marino and then back up to Victory Park.

It was a nice ride.

39 miles.
cycling

On Saturday afternoon, Susan and I went to the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena. I’d been wanting to go there for some time, and they were having an exhibit called “Chinaman’s Chance” about the Chinese immigrant experience. As it turned out, there wasn’t much to the Chinese exhibit. It was three artists whose art reflected their views of straddling the cultural divide. It was amusing, but not very filling.

The rest of the museum was nice, though. There was an exhibit of ceramics from China, along with other artifacts. One of the artifacts was a chair dating from the Ming Dynasty between 1368 and 1644. When I read the card, my first thought was, “that’s one old chair.”