Stan’s Obligatory Blog

I saw this in the parking lot at the grocery store in our neighborhood.

Route map

Today’s lunchtime ride was the Lida Loop yet again. It was a pleasantly warm day, and pretty much perfect for riding.

There wasn’t anything remarkable about today’s ride, since we didn’t see anything particularly amusing. The only incident of note was when I got a flat on the way up the hill on Lida. I sat down in the shade of a tree to fix it, and Vikki took the camera to get the obligatory picture for the Flat Tire Gallery.

Also, Vikki had a very attractive new riding outfit, so I thought I’d get a few pictures of that.

18 miles at lunch, 26 for the day.
cycling

Today’s ride was out to Glendale to see the Bicycle John’s race there. We’ve gone to see this race before, but this time, both Philippe and Vikki were going to be racing.

We left Victory Park in Pasadena and headed out to Glendale by the usual direct route across Eagle Rock. When we got there, we were quite early, so we continued on to Priscilla’s for our snack stop. I took a little detour to see the mailbox in Burbank that is decorated to look like R2D2.

After the snack stop, we headed back to the race, arriving in the middle of the Category 5 race with Philippe. He was staying right in the middle of the pack, so that was good. The pack stayed together to the finish, and Philippe got second place in the field sprint. We were all very excited to see that. He did well.

Vikki’s race was next, and we watched the beginning of it before we had to head out for the ride home. I spoke to her later and found out that she didn’t have such a good race. She was involved in a big crash in one of the turns. She got up and finished the race, but it wasn’t a podium day for her.

Leaving the race, we rode down San Fernando Road to Fletcher and then took our usual route home up Eagle Rock Blvd and El Paso Dr. That was where I saw a pile of trash that had a couch underneath it. I stopped for a picture for the Abandoned Couches Blog.

We rode home across South Pasadena and San Marino, and then up Sierra Madre Blvd back to the park. At that point, I had 40 miles, so I did a little apres ride back across Pasadena on Orange Grove to get a picture of the couches we’d passed on the way out in the morning. Then I rode up past the Rose Bowl and back home on Mendocino across Pasadena.

It was a fun ride, and it was nice to see Philippe place in the race.

52 miles.
cycling

Route map

Today I went riding with Eric at lunchtime. We did a slightly shortened version of the Water Tower ride. We skipped the ride around the Rose Bowl because I forgot that this route included that. Besides, we were a little behind schedule because I got a flat on the way up Patrician Way. But aside from that, it was a very nice ride.

15 miles at lunch, 25 for the day.
cycling

Today we took Lucinda to the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum in Hollywood. She’s been wanting to go there for several years now, ever since she saw the building with the T-Rex head sticking out of the roof on Hollywood Boulevard.

The museum itself is perfectly located. It’s in the middle of the tourist-trap section of Hollywood Blvd, right down the street from the Chinese Theater, and diagonally across from Hollywood and Highland. Inside, it’s a weird collection of stuff. Some of it old, some of it morbid, some of just plain weird. Pictured here is the vampire killing kit, the two-headed baby skeleton, and the most unbelievable of all, an original press kit from “Mr. Ed“.

Like I said, it’s a weird collection of stuff. But it made for a fun afternoon. Now, if only the Museum of Death would re-open…

After my nice 50-mile bike ride this morning, I headed down to Long Beach to the Queen Mary for the Ink and Iron Festival there. This is the fourth year they’ve had this tattoo show, and it’s grown quite a bit in that time. It’s grown into a big tattoo and hot rod show with bands and gone from just the hall inside the ship to taking over most of the area outside the ship, too.

I got there about 2:30 or so and went in. It was already crowded. I have a whole circle of friends that I see only at these events, so I just wandered aimlessly, knowing it was only a matter of time before I saw someone I know. And it wasn’t long. In fact, I wasn’t even inside the ship before I found someone I know. And the rest of the day was like that. It was great fun.

Highlights included the girl with the full-head tattoo getting her head shaved at the barber shop. Also, watching my friend get a Samoan-style hand-tapped tattoo. I also found another old friend who I haven’t seen in several years. She had some personal turmoil and had dropped out of the scene for a while. It was good to see her back again.

There were a lot of nice tattoos there, but my personal favorite of the day was the one pictured here. The color and shading on it were really quite nice.

And all the pictures from the day are in my tattoo convention photo album.

Today’s ride was the “La Tuna Sandwich” route. Up and over La Tuna Canyon, and then down across the valley to Burbank and home by way of the L.A. River bike path and through Eagle Rock.

We met at the Pasadena Elks Lodge. That’s where I saw the parking space reserved for the Exalted Ruler. And I always thought that was a joke. The ride started out going past the Rose Bowl and up into La Cañada. We regrouped at the top of Hospital Hill. Then we headed down into Montrose.

Riding over the top of La Tuna Canyon, we passed the Verdugo Hills Golf Course, where the temporary Japanese internment camp was located for a time in 1942. Then we rode down the long downhill into Sun Valley.

In Sun Valley, we rode through the wasteland of auto dismantling yards, past a place where the road was washed out, and finally into the North Hollywood Arts District. We got a pretty complete tour of The Valley in the process.

At the bottom of the Valley, we turned on Riverside to ride into Toluca Lake. We passed the Barris Kustom showroom on the way, and then we stopped for a snack at Priscilla’s.

After the stop, we headed home by way of the L.A. River bike path. This is where we went on the bridge over Los Feliz Blvd, and I was wondering why a bike path bridge gets posted with a weight limit of 4 tons. I’ve been hearing about the epidemic of obesity, but I didn’t think it had gotten that bad.

Anyway, it was a very nice ride.

50 miles.
cycling

D’oh! I had a whole plan set up for Sunday’s bike ride. We were going to ride down to Lynwood and sightsee the jail where Paris Hilton was staying, but then she got sprung from da joint.

Sheesh.

Well, it sounds like the judge is pissed, and she’s been ordered back to jail. But I’ve already made other plans for Sunday, so we’ll have to go next week.

Route map

Today at lunchtime I went riding with Vikki. By chance, we both wore our Caltech Velo jerseys, so we got a souvenir picture before we started out. We did our flat route through Arcadia, since Eric wasn’t along this time to point out that it’s not really flat. It was a perfect day for riding, and we had a very nice time.

18 miles at lunch, 26 for the day.
cycling

The L.A. Times has a small obituary today for Maurice Marsac. The headline says:

Maurice Marsac, 92: French actor often portrayed snooty waiters

What a way to go. To have your life and career summed up so tidily.

Reading the obituary, it sounds like there was much more to him than that. He was part of the French Resistance during World War II, and a highly-ranked croquet player. And he and his wife were married for 55 years.

Read it here at the L.A. Times website