Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Went riding with Foothill Cycle today. We rode out to Glendora, with a snack stop at the coffee shop at the Classic Car Gallery there. The ride was about 37 miles, but at the end, a couple of us took a side trip up to Chantry Flat in Santa Anita Canyon. This added 8 miles and some climbing to the trip. It was fun. 45 miles.

We went to see “Stacked: Homage to Pamela Anderson” at DiRT Gallery in West Hollywood today. This was a fun little art show with a wide range of works by different artists. One room was devoted to Ms. Anderson. Another room was filled with acrylic hatchets with various objects embedded in them. Also, there was a whole series of hand-painted porcelain guns and hand grenades.

On the way back, we went to Griffith Park to look for the Old Zoo trail. We managed to locate it, but by then Lucinda was tired and cranky, so we went home.

Took a short ride this morning. Out through Sierra Madre and then up to Chantry Flat. The climb was four miles and about 1,500 vertical feet. The road is closed to regular traffic, so I only saw one family of hikers, two runners, four people on bicycles and one Forest Service truck. It was a nice ride. 16 miles.

I went to the doctor today to get the results of my latest cholesterol test. 198 total, with a 163/35 LDL/HDL split. They said this is good, so I don’t have to take statins. It’s a lot better than the 232 I scored back in March. I’ve also lost 10 pounds since March. So the program of bike riding and not eating eggs seems to be working out well.

They told me that I should be getting a half-hour of exercise three times a week. I get a bit more than that five times a week riding my bike to work, and I’ve been doing that for nine years now. But that wasn’t enough. It took adding the 40 mile Sunday rides with Foothill Cycle to make the difference here. But I like riding my bike, so it’s just fun. It doesn’t seem like an ‘exercise program’ at all.

Today there was no official Sunday bike club ride, so the four of us who wanted to ride made our own. I made up a route that took us over to Hollywood, then up Nichols Canyon to Mulholland Drive. We took Mulholland down to Cahuenga Pass and then down into Burbank. Our snack stop was at Priscilla’s in Toluca Lake. Then straight home through Glendale and Eagle Rock. 49 miles.

Today I went for a bike ride to see the sanitarium where Curly Howard died, as well as the cemetary where he is buried. Both are relatively close to our house. The sanitarium is an old building set back off the road, and it’s kind of hard to see. The cemetary seems a bit out of place, as it’s in the middle of the East L.A. barrio. Not the place one expects to find a Jewish cemetary. Still, it was an interesting little adventure, and it’s worth pausing for a moment to salute Curly, since he can still make us laugh over 50 years later. The bike ride was pretty nice, too. I did it early in the morning, so there wasn’t too much traffic. 29 miles.

 

Rode with Foothill again today. It was Gene’s ‘Horizontal Bomp’ ride. Out to Monrovia, south to Temple City, and back through San Marino. The snack stop was at Il Fornaio. Then we went down past the Rose Bowl and up to Altadena Drive for the long downhill home. 38 miles.

We went over the the Motion Picture Academy in Beverly Hills to see their current gallery show about set decoration. They had pieces of sets from lots of recent movies. It was a fun little adventure.

 


After this we went to the Japanese Museum in Little Tokyo to see “September 11: Bearing Witness to History”, which is a traveling Smithsonian exhibit of artifacts recovered from the sites of the September 11th attacks.

Did an early-morning ride today. Out to Duarte and back. Left the house at 06:25 and was back by 08:00. 25 miles.

Short ride early this morning. Duarte and back by the usual route. 25 miles.