Stan’s Obligatory Blog

This evening when I got home from work, I had an unusual situation. I had no kid, no date, and no pressing obligation to do anything in particular. So I got on my bike and went for a ride.

I rode over to the Rose Bowl. There are always a lot of people riding around there, so I figured I might find some company. And I did draft off one guy who was going about 100 miles an hour for a while, which was fun. Then, after about five times around the Bowl, I got bored and turned off. I headed up Lida St, past the Art Center College of Design, up into Glendale. Then down Chevy Chase into La Cañada. Then up Windsor Rd into Altadena, and back across on Mendocino. It was a very pleasant evening ride.

35 miles.
cycling

When we got home from the party on Saturday night, I noticed that my boot felt a bit funny. When I had a look, I saw that the sole had cracked. Not the usual boot sector corruption that I worry about, but annoying none the less…

Today’s ride was a flat one. It’s a route I made up last year that tries to avoid most hills. We did this ride on this same weekend last year. I figured this would be a good choice, since I was up late last night, and didn’t get to ‘lights out’ until 2:00.

As it turned out, the lack of hills just made everyone go faster. So it was still a bit of a challenge. But it was fun. I added a few miles at the beginning as a warmup, and a few at the end to run a quick errand. And I was still home by 11:30. So it was a good ride.

46 miles.
cycling

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We Really, now. You should know by now that I’m just putting this fake text in here as a teaser. “OH FUCK!” But at the same time, what you’re probably imagining is very likely not far off the mark. Heh heh heh. So overall, it was a fun time.

That means it’s time for cookouts and dinner outside. And tonight was the first of the season. Lamb chops with coriander spice-rub, grilled asparagus, and couscous with kalamata olives. Yum.

On Sunday afternoon, I went over to JPL to meet up with my friends Carol and Lee, and their friend Sarah. We wandered around and looked at the various displays. And we went to Mars for the obligatory 3-D picture. It was good nerd fun.

It’s time for the fourth-grade Mission project. This is apparently something that all fourth-graders in California do. For years, I’ve been seeing the models of the various missions displayed in the hallways outside the fourth-grade classrooms. And this year it was Lucinda’s turn. Her assignment was to do a report and make a model of the Mission San Antonio de Padua. And here is the result.

Today was my first time officially at the helm of the Sunday Moderate Ride, so we did a Golden Oldie: Toluca Lake Inverse. This is a route out to Toluca Lake and Priscilla’s by way of Highland Park, and back by way of Hospital Hill and La Cañada. It’s one we’ve done a hundred times before, and it doesn’t have any real hills to speak of. For some reason, I have a reputation for picking rides with lots of ridiculous hills in them. So I promised that the Reign of Terror will begin next week. Or perhaps the week after that…

It was pleasantly cool and overcast when we started out. The ride out was pretty uneventful. We saw Chicken Boy in Highland Park. And we rode up the L.A. River bike path. Then we got to Priscilla’s, where we saw a sign for a ‘Girly Yard Sale’. I’m not quite sure what to make of that. We also ran into my friend Carol Elaine there. I was planning on going to the JPL Open House this afternoon to meet up with her and her friends, so that was fun.

By the time we left Priscilla’s, the sun was out, and it turned out to be a very nice day. We rode back across Glendale and up Hospital Hill. Then back into Pasadena and up to Mendocino Drive for the ride across Altadena. Then back down the hill to the park. It was a very nice ride.

43 miles.
cycling

Vern Gosdin has died. He was a noted country music singer and songwriter, and I was very familiar with his work back in the ’80s. You see, I developed a liking for country music back in high school. This was the result of traveling a lot for bike races in a car with a lame radio that only really worked on the country station. It grew on me. Sadly, I lost my taste for it during my years living in Texas. But maybe I’ll go back to it again, now that I don’t hate Texas any more.

The money quote in his obituary:

“Out of everything bad, something good will come if you look hard enough — and I got 10 hits out of my last divorce,”

Read the whole story here.

Tonight at dinner, Lucinda was showing me that she can pick up ice with her chopsticks. A long time ago, I’d told her that I used to do this for practice, and she wanted to show me that she’d mastered it.

I’m so proud of her.