Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today was the California Shakeout, so of course all of us at the Earthquake Hazards Office participated in the drill. And I found out that I can fit under my desk.

Last Friday, I went to a talk at Caltech about debris flows, and how they are almost certainly going to happen this winter because of the Station Fire. The speaker made mention of one particular house in Sunland. She said that the house had been destroyed by debris flows in 1978, and that it was then rebuilt in exactly the same place. Because of this, it is expected to be destroyed again when the rains come. So of course, I immediately looked up the address and worked out a bike route to get there and see it.

I took the direct route there, since I didn’t feel like riding through Burbank and Sun Valley on a weekday. And riding up Foothill Blvd through La Crescenta and Tujunga was no picnic, either. But I made it to the mouth of Big Tujunga Canyon and got to take in the charred mountain vista. It was impressive. Then I rode up into the little private neighborhood on the north side of the canyon. The fire had come down to within about 100 feet of the houses there, and the burned area looked pretty devastated. And when I found the house, I could see why it had been destroyed. There is a large drainage area above it, and it’s situated in a narrow part of the canyon. And there is no debris basin above it. Anything that comes down from that drainage gets funneled through the canyon where the house is. I suppose the owners know this. Aside from mud and rocks destroying the house every 30 years, it looks like a very pretty and idyllic place to live.

On the way out, I saw two news trucks parked at the mouth of Big Tujunga Canyon. The first rain of the season is predicted for tonight, so they may be setting up to see the first mudflows.

It was an interesting little sightseeing ride.

38 miles.

Addendum: Here’s the Google Maps view of the terrain there, and you can see that there are two big canyons north and northwest of the house, and both those merge into the narrow canyon where the house is. Check it out.

cycling

Last night, Leslie and I watched “Nerdcore Rising.” This was easily the funniest music documentary I’ve seen since “We Sold Our Souls for Rock ‘n’ Roll.” It follows MC Frontalot on his first tour. The tour starts off slow, with small groups in little bars in the south, but it ends in a big way, with a big show at a video game convention. Along the way, they interview fans and others about Nerdcore rap.

Now it’s time for a little braggadocio
while I swing my arms like Ralph Macchio.

This is an obscure little movie, but Netflix has it, and it’s definitely worth watching. And besides, the beginning of the DVD version announces:

This film has been modified from its original version. It has been made more awesome for this screen.

And what could be better than that?

Sunday’s bike ride was over to Griffith Park. It’s a nice route with not a lot of hills. It was cool and overcast, and it never really warmed up.

As you can guess from the pictures, there wasn’t much interesting or amusing along the route today. The two girls riding horses in the park were cute, but aside from that, there wasn’t much else to see.

43 miles.
cycling

But between being a half-time single parent having to ferry Lucinda around, and then having a girlfriend who lives in Santa Monica, I’m really racking up the miles on the the middle-age-mobile. I think I’ll still come in under 10,000 for the year, but it’s a far cry from the days when I drove less than a 1,000 miles a year.

There have been a lot of earthquakes this afternoon. In particular, there have been these three big ones:

M7.3 2009/10/07 23:13:49 -13.145 166.297 33.3 VANUATU
M7.7 2009/10/07 22:18:26 -12.554 166.320 35.0 SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS
M7.8 2009/10/07 22:03:15 -13.052 166.187 35.0 VANUATU

In the Earthquake Notification Service, also known as My Pet Project, subscribers can pick their own location and magnitude criteria for notification, but the general rule is that the larger the earthquake, the more people want to know about it. And anything over M7 will generate a lot of mail. So I went and poked through the logs to see just how many messages it’s sent in the last few hours.

It’s currently not quite 7:00PM here in Los Angeles. I looked at logs back to 2:00PM, which is about when these big events started coming through the system. And the notification system has sent 642,590 messages in that time. That averages out to about 36 messages a second for five hours. No wonder some ISPs with automatic filters have blocked our mail servers as suspected spam sources.

Just for perspective, the system has sent about 775,000 messages in the past 24 hours. And this is not a record. The 24-hour record for the system is 943,833 messages in 24 hours, and that was set last Saturday.

On Sunday, Lucinda and I went down to Carson to watch the final day of racing at the Elite National Track Championships. We’ve been going to this for the last few years, and it’s always a fun afternoon.

When we got there, we saw my old racing friend Cleve at the video camera by the finish line. He and I used to ride races in the New York area, and particularly, the Tuesday and Thursday evening races they used to have at SUNY Old Westbury on Long Island.

The first races we saw were the men’s team sprint finals. And then it was the highlight of the day: The men’s Madison final. This is always a fun race to watch. It’s very hard to keep track of what’s happening, but there’s so much action that it’s just fun to watch anyway. The race is 200 laps, so it lasts a while, which is different from most other track events. So it’s good all around.

The last event of the day was a women’s Madison. This is the first time I’ve ever seen women riding one of these races, and they did very well. In the end, Team Vanderkitten gained a lap on the pack. They rode very well and clinched the victory. I hope they make the Madison an official women’s event in the future. These women showed that they were up to it.

It was a fun afternoon. It was about as much fun as it’s possible for me to have when someone else is riding the bike.

I was curious, so I did a bit of math. Climbing the U.S. Bank Tower required lifting my body weight 1,018 feet in 15 minutes and 7 seconds.

162 lb = 73.6 kg
1018 feet = 310 meters
73.6 kg x 9.8 m/s**2 x 310 m = 2.24 x 10**5 joules
15 min + 7 sec = 907 sec
2.24 x 10**5 joules / 907 sec = 247 watts
247 watts = 0.331 horsepower

That’s just the power to lift my body weight, and I’m neglecting the energy that went into running on the stairs, passing people, and panting like a dog. So my actual power output was a little bit higher.

I think that’s pretty good for being nearly 50 years old.

This afternoon was the YMCA Stair Climb to the Top up the U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles. I’ve heard about this for years, and I’d always wanted to try it. So now was the time. Unlike the AON Tower stair climb last April, this one was held on Friday afternoon. This meant that riding my bike there was not really an option, since it was going to be dark by the time I went home. Friday traffic is the stuff of nightmares here, so I rode the train. The Pershing Square Metro station had some nice neon art in it. And of course, I took the stairs both in and out of the subway. Never too early to start warming up.

I walked over to the Ketchum Downtown YMCA and registered. Then I went into the locker room and changed. The YMCA is up on Bunker Hill, while the entrance to the building is down on 5th St. So I walked down the Bunker Hill Steps to get to the starting line. At the time, they were running the “Highrise Heroes” division, which is to say, firefighters in full gear. I rather doubt any of them turned in great times, but just the fact that they were able to make it to the top carrying all that stuff was impressive.

After the last firefighters had gone, they ran the individual age groups, starting with the 10-14 and 15-17 groups, and then working down from 60+. When they called the 40-49 men to the line, I got in line about 3/4 of the way back. I figured that would give me more guys to catch and pass. That’s how I get motivated in these things. I just focus on catching the guy in front of me. It’s sort of like that old joke about the bear: “I just have to outrun you.”

When it was my turn, I started up the stairs, doing two steps at a time. Back in April, I managed to maintain that pace for 32 floors. This time, I did nearly the entire thing two steps at a time. A few times, I dropped back to single steps to try and catch my breath. Which turned out to be fool’s errand, as you can see from the picture. That was taken about floor 50 or so. I was very deep in oxygen debt from the start.

At the top, I ran out of the stairwell onto the roof. Once I’d passed the timing pad, they gave me a bottle of water and a little medal to say that I’d made it. Then I immediately sat down and proceeded to pant like a dog. After about five minutes, the pain subsided, and I figured out how to hold the camera steady enough for a nice souvenir photo from the roof with the sunset over Hollywood in the background. Then I headed back down the other stairs to the 69th floor elevator lobby. We had to ride down to 54 and then get the express elevator back to the lobby.

The elevator let us out in the lobby on 5th St. Which meant that we had to go back up the Bunker Hill Steps to get to the YMCA, where they had food, drinks, and race results. Bein’ a badass, I ran up the steps. Wow, did that hurt. I went into the locker room and changed back to my street clothes. Then I went to the little beer garden they had set up. They gave every finisher a ticket for a free beer. By then, I was hacking up phlegm at a furious rate. I talked to a woman who had won the 60+ division, and she said that that’s referred to as “Climber’s Cough”, and it’s a known phenomenon. In other words, it’s a Feature. She also told me about how there’s apparently a circuit of these stair climbs around the country. The one up the Stratosphere in Las Vegas sounds like a hoot. I don’t know if I’d be up for more traveling than that. Maybe San Francisco for the Bank of America building.

When they posted the results, I was pleased to see that I’d come in at 15:07, which was good for 7th place in the 40-49 division. I’d guessed that I’d be around 15 minutes. That time would have been good for 6th in the 50-59 division, and 5th place in 30-39. Apparently, us old guys are tough.

Since I wasn’t in the top three, there was not going to be a medal in my evening this year. So I headed back to the subway to go home. I still took the stairs, though.

It was a very fun adventure.

Update: The overall results are posted online now, and I was 28th out of 309 runners in the Open division. There were only five guys my age or older who went faster than I did. Results are here

Ever since I got my new car in June, I’ve been planning what to do with the old one. My old car has been with me for 19 years, and it’s been good. We had a lot of adventures, but it was time to move on. In the meantime, my dear friend Starlet needed a car, so I told her she could have it for a ridiculously low price because she’s my friend. So she came over today to pick it up. This is actually the first time we’ve met that was not at a tattoo convention.

So now I have room in my garage. For now, I guess I have parking space for all my bikes. And maybe someday, for another car belonging to someone special.

In the meantime, I know my old car is going to a good home, and I hope it can do some good for Starlet.