Stan’s Obligatory Blog

I’m still nesting.

Today I made buttermilk pancakes from scratch for the first time. They were good. And surprisingly easy to make. I’ll never buy a box of pancake mix again.

Since it was raining today, I couldn’t go bike riding. So here’s what else I do as a way to keep occupied and relieve stress. I build shit. I’ve been thinking for some years of setting up a little herb garden outside. So today, I went and got some wood, and I built this planter. I divided it in half, because it’s pretty big, and I haven’t decided yet what all the things are that I’m going to grow. So I filled half of it and transplanted my little rosemary bush and also the thyme plant. I also got seeds for oregano, dill, and cilantro that I started in pots on the windowsill. I’ll transplant them outside when they come up. Maybe by then it will be warm enough and I’ll put basil in the other side so I can make pesto this summer.

Now I’m off to the kitchen again to start on dinner. Broiled rib steak with fennel, ginger and cloves, and onions broiled with the same spices. Also, braised fennel, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. And finally, I’m making another pan of brownies for dessert.

Lucinda and I were playing pinball again last night. She’s getting quite good now. She gets the extra ball at 240,000 points pretty regularly. And she beat me a few times last night.

One funny thing that happened while we were playing was that the ball got stuck in a completely new way. I’ve owned this machine since 1984, and I’ve never seen the ball get stuck there before. So I had to take a picture to commemorate the occasion before we jostled the machine to get the ball moving again. Of course it promptly fell down the outlane, but still, it was amusing.

Today’s ride was the “Glendale Vistas” route. We do a variation on this ride on Sundays some times. The most recent time was at the end of December, when I broke my cassette going up one of the hills. I’ve been sick this week, so that, along with various other unpleasantness at home meant that I was not feeling particularly strong today. So I didn’t break my bike this time.

We are having a quick break between storms today, so it was actually a perfect day for riding. A bit chilly at first, but it warmed up nicely. Mt Wilson had a dusting of snow on top, which doesn’t happen all that often.

We rode up into La Cañada and then over Chevy Chase and down into Glendale. This is normally a fun descent, but the road was still wet from the rain last night. So we all went pretty slow.

On the ride across Glendale, I saw the Eat Well Coffee Shop. I thought that this was a nice, straightforward name for a restaurant. Sort of like Hammered Liquor.

Continuing on, we turned and started up the hills north of downtown Glendale. There were some nice views along the way before we came out at the top. That was where they had a sign at the end of the street warning us about mountain lions.

After all the hills, we rode down into Montrose and stopped at Berolina bakery. From there, we just headed home by the usual route over Hospital Hill and back to Pasadena.

It was a fun little ride, even though we didn’t really go anywhere or see anything.

40 miles.
cycling

I just found out that the paper about My Pet Project has been published in Seisomological Research Letters:

The USGS Earthquake Notification Service (ENS): Customizable Notifications of Earthquakes around the Globe

I’ve had co-authorship on papers before, but this is the first time a whole paper has been published about something that I invented. Yay.

Cooking is still one of my favorite ways of dealing with stress. That and bike riding. And drinking beer. And I’ve been doing a lot of all three lately.

Tonight, I made a new batch of home-made pita bread and a some tzatziki sauce. The lula kebab meat came from the Armenian market up on Washington Blvd. And I got a recipe for Persian rice.

Now, what to make for dessert…

There was an egret perched by one of the little ponds at Disneyland. Everything there is artificial, so it’s kind of a shock to see an actual wild animal there. But I guess there’s good eatin’ in the pond.

So this is my latest Canon commercial.

Today we were supposed to go to the snow with Shannon, Mars, and Rose. I made a pan of brownies and a batch of blueberry muffins to take along. Then Shannon called and said that she didn’t think we should go because it was going to rain. So Cathy suggested Disneyland, and I agreed to take Lucinda and her friend.

Normally, if I had a choice between a day at Disneyland and a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, I’ll take the stick. But today my choice was between a day at Disneyland and a day at home. So I chose Disneyland.

And it turned out to be all right. We had a nice time. We rode a total of eight rides, which I think is pretty good. And we got to go on Star Tours. That ride is pretty old now, but it’s still good.

At the end, we walked over to Downtown Disney and had dinner before going home. Overall, it was a good day, although I think I looked a bit haunted in the picture on the Dumbo ride.

Tonight, I made The Swallow’s Pork and Tomatillo Stew. That’s what’s in the picture. I also made Shredded Pork Enchiladas. And two loaves of Olive Bread. Cooking is a nice relaxing activity for me. So it’s just the thing in these Trying Times.

Today’s bike ride was our Larchmont Village route. The idea was to see the headless Statue of Liberty that I’d heard Paramount had near their front gate on Melrose Ave. This was supposed to be promoting their new movie, “Cloverfield“.

It was chilly when we set out. We rode down through Eagle Rock and across the L.A. River. Then on down Silver Lake Blvd. There was no sign of the work to drain the reservoir that we’ve been hearing about lately.

When we got to Larchmont, we stopped at Noah’s Bagels. There was a little promotion for “Cloverfield” written in chalk on the sidewalk there. I guess that’s what you get when a mega-corporation attempts viral marketing. I thought it was funny that there was some person who was paid to go around writing stuff on the sidewalks in chalk.

Leaving Larchmont, we rode down Melrose past Paramount. But there was no sign of Lady Liberty. So either they’d taken it down, or it was in some place that was less than obvious.

When we got back to Pasadena, I remembered that today was the Doo Dah Parade. So several of us stopped off to have a look. We saw lots of people handing out campaign materials for Dennis Kucinich. It would be interesting to study why he so appeals to people with the anarchist spirit of the Doo Dah Parade. We also saw the Angel City Derby Girls and the Midnight Ridazz. I developed an immediate crush on all the Derby Girls. They’re just so darn cute. And one of the Midnite Ridazz was also my favorite. I love heavily tattooed girls with nose rings. As a final treat, we saw that the Grand Marshal for the Parade was Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping.

Pictures of the parade are here: http://www.1134.org/gallery/index.php/stan/random/doodah2008

38 miles
cycling

This afternoon, I took Lucinda and her friend for a little adventure in Hollywood.

First, we went to West Hollywood, where we went to M+B to see the Alison Jackson: Confidential photo show. This was a fairly small exhibit, but it was very amusing. I bought the book so we can see the rest of her photos.

After that, we went to the park in West Hollywood. The girls played there for a bit before we headed back to Hollywood to visit High Voltage Tattoo. This is the shop in “L.A. Ink“, which Lucinda and I have been enjoying recently. When we were first watching it, there was a scene of a person walking out he front door, and I recognized the JONS market across the street. And I realized that the shop was right around the corner from our old condo in Hollywood. So I’d promised Lucinda that I’d take her there to visit. We gawked for a bit and I bought Lucinda a shirt. And then we went home. It was a fun little afternoon adventure.