Stan’s Obligatory Blog

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.

Today I did something different. It was the City of Angels Fun Ride. We’d seen this ride go by last year. The idea of riding with a rolling road closure was appealing, since it meant that we wouldn’t have to stop at all. So I thought I’d try it. I guess I was expecting a well-disciplined group that could ride smoothly together, which can be a lot of fun. When I got there, I saw Ben from the Sunday Morning ride group, so we rode together.

As it turned out, this was a sort of different usage of the word ‘fun’ with which I was previously unfamiliar. Because of the rolling road closure, they required that we ride in one large group. This was a lot like riding in a large racing peleton, but with mostly riders who do not know how to ride in a peleton. So the end result could more accurately be described as ‘harrowing’. We toured around the city, but really couldn’t do any sightseeing, since I didn’t dare look away for even a second. During the first part of the ride, I only saw one rider crash. This was pretty remarkable, considering all the bumping and bonehead moves that I saw going on in the group.

They had a rest and snack stop at the Ford Theater in Hollywood. I grabbed an orange and a few cookies. Then, when it was time to go, several more riders fell while pulling out of the parking lot. They hadn’t realized that the street was uphill, and they were in the wrong gears. Turkeys.

For some inexplicable reason, the police escort we had forced us to go really slowly into Griffith Park. We rode through the park, and then made one lap around it. At the end of the lap, we were about to leave the park and ride back to the finish. But they made us all stop. They said we had to wait 10 minutes for some reason that they really didn’t make clear at all. At this point, I’d had enough. I wasn’t enjoying it. So I unpinned my number from my jersey, pulled out of the line, and rode home.

The ride home was very nice and relaxing. Even having to deal with cars and traffic signals was much mellower than my experience riding in that group. So overall, it was not an especially nice ride.

77 miles.
cycling

For several years I’ve known Silvio from the Sunday morning bicycle club rides. About a year ago he mentioned that he manages Drago in Santa Monica, and he said I should come out some time for dinner. So tonight was the night.

We made an afternoon of is. Shari and I did some costume and jewelry shopping across Hollywood on the way out there. And when we got there, a table was ready and waiting for us. After looking at the menu, we decided to go for the prix fixe menu. Silvio said he would pick the wine for us. He selected and comped us a very nice bottle of Sicilian red wine that was very good, and went well with the filet mignon and lamb chops we had picked.

At the end, he brought us a special dessert sampler, which was all very good. Overall, it was a very fun little evening.